


Logolepsy

by distantdreaming



Category: Percy Jackson and the Olympians & Related Fandoms - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Depression, Eating Disorders, F/M, Graphic Depictions of Illness, M/M, Self-Harm, Triggers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-06-24
Packaged: 2018-05-13 04:56:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 12
Words: 41,153
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5695624
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/distantdreaming/pseuds/distantdreaming
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>(n.) an obsession with words.<br/>--<br/>College, Nico thinks, is not at all what they tell you it will be like in high school. It is also, less surprisingly, not what the movies say and the ‘reality’ tv shows make it out to be. It is, in fact, something else entirely. It is an experience, and it is where he learns that he is not who he thought he was, nor is he all that displeased with who he's becoming. The journey there, though, is arduous and exhausting, but the destination just may be worth every hurdle.<br/>--<br/>Please heed the warnings and read the notes for definitions and further warnings. Stay safe, please, and don't chance your mental health if you think it may be compromised.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Sororicide

**Author's Note:**

> I'm trash. I apparently can't stop writing these two, so if you followed my last fic, TKAA, then here we go again. I am not any nicer to the nerds this time around.  
> Unfortunately, I am yet again unable to work with a happy Nico, as that's simply not who he is, like, ever, after age ten or so. Therefore, I go into explicit detail with how he feels and the struggles he faces, and it's categorized correctly as depression and associating eating disorders. If this is something you are struggling with or recovering from, I ask you not to risk your health for a fic. I am always, always available to talk, be it here or on tumblr.   
> Most all of what he's feeling is based off of personal experiences, so it's not going to be textbook accurate or Relatable® to everyone. And that's good, because it feels like shit.  
> Swearing and long waffling about feelings ahead, kiddies. Enjoy, and react to me.
> 
> **Sororicide**  
>  (from Latin soror "sister" + -cide, from caedere "to cut, to kill") is the act of killing one's own sister.

He starts his Freshman year, and he lives in off campus student housing with Jason Grace, and it’s odd. Jason is nice, extremely so, neat and friendly and willing to do all the dishes if Nico cooks, which is a deal that works well for both of them. 

Nico lays out rules the day they move in and Jason never pushes, never breaks them, and never asks why. This is a feat more than such a simple statement can portray, as some of Nico’s requests (rules) are things he will not (cannot) deal with for reasons he will not (cannot, at all) explain. Reasons to do with Bianca, and how hearing any song by the Beatles makes him feel like he can’t breathe and he can’t watch  _ Grease _ anymore because she’s not saying every other line while they quote the entire film. 

Jason simply nods, visibly makes several mental notes, and asks if he can cook, or, if not, if he’s a fan of takeout Chinese and pizza every night, which is how they strike the dishes deal.

It’s not something he’s really used to, the acceptance, so it throws him for a hell of a loop and he ends up just sitting there staring, waiting for questions that don’t come. It’s an awkward encounter, which is probably the basis for their limited interactions in the coming weeks.

Afterwards, a week passed before Jason sat him down and set up a cleaning schedule, a laundry day for each of them so they didn’t get in each other’s way, and a splitsies budget for food they’d eat as meals (Jason, fortunately, is from a wealthy family on the same level as Nico’s, so there is no fretting about getting the rent on time or not having the money needed to buy such food). It’s a matter settled quickly and efficiently, and that is that. They don’t seek each other out.

They coexist, Nico coming out of his room to cook meals and go to class, and otherwise they say simple greetings to each other when they see each other and part ways once the food is plated. Nico doesn’t need to worry about figuring out body language and working out what certain tones mean and trying to understand anyone, and he doesn’t have to explain that the reason he can no longer read people is because he stopped talking to anyone when he was ten and he didn’t actually physically speak again until high school. He doesn’t have to explain that his sister was everything in his world and he didn’t need or want to know anyone but her and then she died and he was so, so very alone and the world was so, so very big and so, so very loud. 

Jason is social, Nico realizes, and has plenty of friends, but he never once tries to bring them over. Instead, he visits them, leaving notes on the whiteboard he stuck to the inside of the front door when he goes out so that if Nico is blocking out the world with headphones again and he comes out to an empty dorm, he isn’t surprised. 

Nico never mentioned that things like that make him feel really disconnected, and that unnerves him, and he never has to. Jason had stuck the board up at the end of the first week, and explained what it was for, and Nico was never alone without knowing why. He doesn’t know how Jason thought of it, or why, but he’s extremely grateful. He can safely use music to relax and focus on his projects without feeling like it’s the coping method it is, without feeling like he’s as fucked up as he is. 

He wonders if Jason’s some kind of psych major.

He’d ask, but that’s outside their daily fifty word limit, so it’s...not  really something he’s comfortable with. He doesn’t speak unless he has to, now, as he still doesn’t like to (he’d found high school to be too hard to continue in the same hellish vein middle school was, so he’d dusted off his vocal cords and forced them to work again, monosyllabically and rarely but there nonetheless). He’d avoid it altogether again if he could, but college is academically harder and he needs to make friends with his professors.

Instead, he’ll accept Jason’s intuition and be silently grateful, and they will continue to coexist.

***

Midway through the first semester, Nico has discovered that ‘weird’ doesn’t cover the shit he sees college students do on a regular basis. He’s lost count of how many people arrive to morning classes in pajamas with red bull in their hands, how many professors are beyond laid back and have reached the level of casual guidance, how many colors can appear in one person’s hair, how many tattoos on skin and piercings in bodies, how incredibly diverse the student body is and how no one really knows everyone. 

It’s a welcome change from the cliques of high school, where you were sorted into areas at lunch and PE was divided into athletic and everyone else. Sure, majors are certainly a little grouped, but even within the majors there’s more differences than in Nico’s entire senior class had. It’s...reassuring. He’s not alone in being a quiet kid with dark hair and clothes with a goal of passing his classes and nothing else. He can sit in the back with the others that aren’t there to be social, he can work in peace and no one tries to interrupt. 

Even Jason—who he passes occasionally on campus and who is literally never alone when not home—merely nods at him with a friendly smile, never trying to come over and drag him into an introduction and a conversation. He doesn’t have to fight for a spot to be alone, to be left alone. He prefers to work with headphones in an area without a lot of social distractions, and his campus offers that in fields with scattered benches and secluded little picnic tables. Even in classes, he can claim a table and work with his music on and no one trying to budge in on his space or grab his attention. 

He works alone, lives alone, and he’s not lonely. He’s not scared of interaction, and he’s not avoiding everyone because he’s terrified of saying or doing the wrong thing and accidentally showing too much of himself. He’s not afraid of getting close only for that person to rip away and leave him so, so very alone. He’s not losing a war against the feelings in his heart and the exhaustion in his head, he’s not having to force himself up in the morning and continue on because it’s the only thing he really knows how to do. He’s certainly not pretending to be unaware of the fact he’s treading in dangerous waters when it comes to mental health and safety. 

He’s not.

***

He doesn’t go home for Thanksgiving. It’s off campus housing, and he chose it for the specific purpose of being able to stay year-round with no trouble. Jason leaves the first day of break and writes on the board for him to have a safe and happy holiday, and Nico erases it the next morning. He doesn’t bother making any food that weekend, surviving off of fruit and water, locked in his room and finishing his final project a few weeks early, studying for his other classes when he no longer has the project to procrastinate with. 

He passes out twice. 

Jason returns the day before classes, and Nico’s making dinner when he enters, snacking on the raw vegetables and a small slice of bread while he cooks. Jason greets him happily and asks about his holiday, and he gives some bullshit answer and plates up food for one. He slides it over, and carries the pan and pot to the sink to rinse. 

“You’re not eating?” Jason asked, confused, already twirling his fork in the pasta. 

“No, I ate earlier, and I don’t feel well.” Nico says, turning off the water. “I have to study. Bye.”

He leaves before Jason’s finished chewing his bite, locking his door and curling up on his bed, exhausted though he slept a good twelve hours every time he got to sleep.

***

Winter rushes in with a flurry of snowflakes and the howling of winds, and Nico, with his already lower than average body temperature, is fucking freezing. 

He’s in three layers minimum whenever he leaves the apartment, and it’s still not enough. His gloves are leather and his jacket is leather and his scarf is thick and he can feel the chill through it all, he can feel the redness in his cheeks from the cold and it’s hard to run because everything feels sluggish. It reaches a point where he’s so desperate he slips into a coffee shop on campus, unable to really feel his fingers or his toes and having nowhere else to go since a canceled class leaves him an hour to kill. 

It’s crowded inside, the warmth and coziness of the shop evidently inviting to more than just him. He’d leave immediately at the number of people, but he’s damn cold and snowflakes are starting to tumble down through the air outside and the sky’s dark with clouds. If he leaves now, there’s a large chance he’ll be soaked and sick by the time his next class is due to start. It’s with an internal sigh that he turns away from the doors and shuffles inwards, searching for an empty table or a quiet corner. He doesn’t much care for the common American-blend coffee or the too-strong Cuban blends, preferring authentic Italian roast to literally everything else, so he doesn’t bother trying to find the end of the line. 

He manages to locate a small, abandoned table in the very back with one wobbly chair, and it’s good enough. He curls up in the chair, twisting the ring on his left hand after he pulls off his gloves to let the warmth touch his fingers faster. The hum of a dozen conversations washes over him, white noise behind the noises of the coffee machines and the cash register. It’s peaceful, really, when he doesn’t think about how this is the closest he can handle to human interaction without anxiety crawling up the back of his throat and capturing his vocal cords. 

Sometimes he misses how he used to be able to chatter on without a care for who was listening (or not listening, as many cases were). That leads to him missing the one person that always, always listened, though, and that just upsets him, so he really does try not to think about it. Intrusive thoughts are a bitch, though, and her name and her face flash by in his mind unbidden, the green of her floppy hat and the warmth of her smile. His breath catches, he feels choked by the loss of the sound of her voice, the fact that, no matter how desperately he tries, he can’t remember what the exact pitch was. He has to rewatch all the home videos every year on her birthday with his father, and it’s his least favorite day of the year.

He’s jerked out of his thoughts when the table he’s curled up behind is run into, and it tips dangerously towards falling before a brown hand grabs the edge and hauls it back upright. Nico’s eyes, wide with surprise, take a moment to move from the table and to its savior and likely its pusher in the first place. The hand belongs to an equally brown (perhaps the best description would be amber) boy with honey blonde, sun-kissed waves, and the brightest blue eyes Nico’s ever seen (and this is saying something, as Nico’s teenage crush had some seriously ocean-deep eyes). The stranger flashes a bright, warm grin at him, and apologizes with a Southern drawl that, if Nico had been standing, would have weakened his knees.

“Didn’t mean to scare ya, kid,” says the beautiful boy, winking at him before he’s swept away in the crowd of what is likely frat guys that passes by from another entrance, and Nico’s left staring after him in shock.

***

Nico does not see the boy again for several weeks, in which time finals pass over him and he’s left with no school to distract from his own thoughts, and Jason’s off in a haze of cheer for the holidays and Nico’s left alone in the apartment, bitter and cold and drowning in depression (because that’s what it is, he can’t pretend it’s not anymore).

He spends the first week sleeping for the most part, only getting out of bed for the bathroom, scrolling tumblr on his phone for the hours when sleep evades him. He doesn’t bother with food, though distantly he knows he should eat. He hates the dizzy spells he gets when he stands.

He passes out once before he makes anything, though, and even then it’s just a salad so he has the energy to shower, as he hates feeling anything but clean. If he’ll have nothing else, he’ll be comfortable and clean. He won’t give that up, not yet.

***

Christmas rolls around and he’s forced into showering and eating enough to stand because his father sends a car for him on the eve. He gets in with a nod to Jules-Albert, the French chauffeur his dad hired specifically so he’d stop picking fights with the asshole that drives his father around. Jules-Albert gives him a creepy smile, which is his default greeting, and proceeds to drive with a gleeful amount of subtle road rage and speeding that always amuses Nico. The driver probably flips off more people in an hour than Nico has ever flipped off in his entire life, and Nico’s starting to pick up random French insults. It’s great, really, entertainment and a linguistics lesson.

He keeps a hand on the bag keeping Hazel’s present upright and containing the mandatory bottle of champagne he bought off of some sketch kid on the third floor of his building, keeping it from tumbling off the seat during turns or the occasional slightly sudden stop. He couldn’t care less if the champagne broke on the way, but he’d painted Hazel a huge portrait of the French Quarter in Louisiana, decked out in Mardi Gras style. It’s her favorite time of the year in her favorite place on the planet, so he’d spent hours getting the details just right in the past two months, and metallic paint and thick swirls of paint bring it to life in an incredible way. He knows, without a doubt, that she will love it. He’d wrapped it carefully in gold paper, a red, real fabric ribbon tied in a perfect bow sitting high and a little to the side, her name on a sparkling card laced into the ribbon, and it’s a present straight out of a magazine.

He adores Hazel, she’s the only person in his family that he’s not some degree of uncomfortable around, and she’s a recent addition. He discovered her knocking on the mansion doors late one evening about a year and a half ago, tear streaked and desperate because she’d traveled all the way from Louisiana to beg the father she’d never met for a place to stay, as her mother had passed and left her penniless. It had taken all of three minutes of her explanation to ignite Nico’s temper, and he’d caused a storm in the household that left the staff scurrying away from him for a week, his father livid but properly shamed, and Hazel in a scared awe. In short, it was his (enraged) convincing (commanding) that made his father take her in and give her a new start, a chance at a new life.

It had been the first time he talked in a month, too, and Hazel is still the only person left in the world that he can have a conversation with without feeling his throat close up midsentence. Needless to say, Hazel is his favorite human at the current moment, and so putting hours into her present never once felt like work. He looks forward to her warmth and the cinnamon scent of her hair when she hugs him, the happiness she brings to the gloomy, creepy fucking mansion he grew up in. It was never cold until they lost Bianca, it never felt too large or too empty or so lonely, never became a prison. She painted it into a special place of discovery and fun, and when she left, so did all the light.

Hazel, though, Hazel brought it back. It didn’t feel like home anymore, and he doubts it ever will, that anything will, but with her, he feels safe enough to be himself.

***

When he arrives, forty minutes late due to traffic, the staff lets him in and informs him that his father and stepmother left for dinner twenty minutes ago, Hazel with them. He has to take a deep breath and steady himself, feeling a coil tighten in his stomach. He should have known nothing would change, even with his months-gone absence. His father still treated him with a cold distance of blame, detachment, and his stepmother has never expressed anything but annoyance, distaste or indifference towards him. Hazel would have had to be dragged, he knows she wouldn’t let this happen if she knew he was coming.

In retrospect, though, he realizes she likely didn’t know. He’d turned down the car for Thanksgiving, sent a message that basically equated to telling Persephone to put a plant in his chair because he knows she’d enjoy having it at dinner more than him. His father is not the sort of man to bother with trivial things, and informing the daughter he views as a better child than Nico has ever been that his sororicidal son might be coming for dinner.

For the record, he did not kill Bianca. It has taken almost a decade for him to process enough to be able not to blame himself, but his father still does, refusing to see that Bianca’s own decisions led to her being in a car with her girlfriend at two in the morning on a roadtrip, and it was fate that decided a drunk driver would careen into her lane, would kill them both instantly, leaving Nico’s birthday present in the back seat in a dented box splattered with her blood. It was fate that stole her away from him when he was only eleven, nearly twelve, when she was almost sixteen, when she had so much life left to live and so much love left to give.

He’d known she was out, that night, had made her promise to be home in time for his birthday, and he was the reason they were driving so late. 

He no longer celebrated his birthday.

He heads upstairs wordlessly, refusing to acknowledge the walls that once held pictures of Bianca upon them, that once held pictures of his mother, the woman that shone every bit as bright as Bianca and yet was torn away from him as well, crushed in a building collapse when he was only nine. He pushes open the door to a bare room that used to be his, but feels as impersonal and sterile as a hospital.

He puts down his bags, closes the door, and sits on the edge of a bed that isn’t his, rests his hands on sheets that are much too brightly purple to be his, and lays on his back in the center after a moment, staring at the ceiling until Hazel returns.


	2. Mellifluous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Christmas is hard. Jason's return is jarring.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> mel·lif·lu·ous  
> /məˈliflo͞oəs/  
> adjective  
> from late Latin mellifluus (from mel ‘honey’ + fluere ‘to flow’) + -ous.  
> (of a voice or words) sweet or musical; pleasant to hear.  
> \--  
> Mentions of depression, an eating disorder, disassociation.

He doesn’t sleep, he has had too much sleep at this point and yet he is always so tired. He just waits until he hears the groan of the front doors being pulled open, hears Hazel’s vice flow into the halls like honey, and then he sits up, slides off the bed, and heads down to greet her.

His footsteps are silent even on the black marble stairs; he knows how to traverse this house without alluding to his presence, without being seen, sliding amongst the shows and disappearing into the alcoves in the walls whenever someone passes by. The habits are so ingrained that he does this naturally, now, can’t walk down the hallways of his own childhood home anymore without feeling like he’s doing something incredibly wrong. He reaches the ground floor before anyone notices he’s even there, and even then it’s only Hazel that spots him, her sentence breaking off into a squeal of delight as she sprints towards him to hug him as tightly as she can. His father jumps at the sound and turns to them, and Nico looks away before he can see the drop in whatever expression his father has on.

Instead, he buries his face in Hazel’s lovely mane of curls, hugs her back, and listens to her gush about how much she missed him. He can feel the corners of his mouth pulling up, and his face feels stiff, but the smile is still brought out naturally because Hazel has that kind of effect on him. He never wants to pull away, but he knows he must, so he lets go when she does, sliding his hands in the pockets of his skinny jeans.

Hazel’s chatter is so soothing, he lets the sound of her voice wash over him, listens attentively as she expresses her surprise and her joy, listens to her gentle scolds for staying away and not even trying to call her or Skype her—and for this, he feels guilt and shame, because he’s been so lost in himself that he’d forgotten about her requests entirely—and for how thin he is and how pale. She doesn’t spend long on it, which is a relief, and by the time she’s asking him how college is, his father and Persephone are nowhere to be seen.

***

Lying to Hazel feels wrong, but he’s good at it; so good in fact, that she cannot tell, for all that she can read him. He tells her that he is happy, that he is okay, that college has been what he’d needed. He tells her he is worn because finals were a bitch, that he is normally healthier than this but that he’s been catching up on sleep and Netflix (which, yeah, he has, he’s current on The Walking Dead again).

He tells her about Jason and he paints her a picture of a happy life with a good roommate, easy professors, nice classmates, and fun coursework. She eats it up with a smile because it is everything she wants to hear, and she never questions him because she doesn’t know that he’s ever lied to her. He doubts if she realizes he lies to everyone, all the time. It makes him feel sick, and he knows the week following this break will be one of the hardest in a while, but he lets himself soak up her presence anyways because he’s a sucker for the kind of bittersweet agony that is having someone care so much and yet know and understand so little.

He knows that she would help him if he let her, but he can’t. He wants so badly to trust her, but he’s so terrified of her reaction that he can’t bring himself to do it and ruin the image she has of him as her older brother, headstrong and powerful and her forever knight. How can he tell her that there are days that he finds it hard to breathe? How can he explain that he feels the want to eat but that he does not have to willpower to do so? That he knows there are therapists at his school but that he cannot will himself to seek them out? That he does not find a point in much of anything anymore and goes through the motions and does his work because that is what he’s supposed to do?

The only time he lets himself feel is when there’s a brush or a pencil or some form of instrument in his hands a surface in front of him wherein he is allowed to properly express anything. Art is his escape, his solace.

***

She leaves him only after they’ve talked for hours and he’s learned all about the boy she’s secretly dating, a teddy bear named Frank that she says gives the best hugs on earth (she’s wrong, she has that title) and is the sweetest thing since cherry pie. It’s cute, the way her cheeks flush and the pitch her voice gets when she describes Frank, and though he’s protective, he’s not finding any sort of red flags. Everything she says really just hits the teddy bear nail on the head, and he’s pretty convinced that she’s making him up but she gets a text from a contact with the name of “Frank [bear emoji][purple heart emoji]” and he realizes she’s actually met the human equivalent of every sweet-faced boy to grace Disney’s screens. Naturally, of course, she has found her prince early on.

He cannot think of anyone that deserves happiness and a Disney romance more than she, nor anyone that would be a better princess. When she leaves to head to bed, late and still giggling, typing a reply to her Charming, he lays back on the bed, and tries not to wonder what it would be like to have that kind of feeling.

***

Christmas morning earns him a cinnamon-scented wakeup call that is more an ambush hug than anything else, and she’s only eighteen when he feels like he’s a hundred and two, and her energy is not as contagious as it used to be and the realization scares him enough to get him up and trying, for her sake.

Her mellifluous voice soothes his thoughts into nothing but a dull murmur, which is something he’s beyond grateful for, because it means he can concentrate on what she’s saying. It’s nothing particularly quotable, but she’s passionate anyways, pulling him downstairs while he's still in the sweatpants and hoodie he slept in. _Presents,_ she says, a smile on her face that’s bright enough to light a cathedral.

Hazel’s loss did not strip her of her presence in life, did not strike her down or tear away parts of her personality that cannot be replaced, or at least parts that are necessary for her to function properly. She’d mourned, long and hard, lost a place in her heart, a piece, and Nico knows without a doubt that she’d loved Marie Levesque with a passion to rival his love for Bianca or his own mother, Maria.

It is her strength of character, the size if her heart, the light in her eyes that refuses to flicker; that is what kept her from fading. Nico does not have these traits, or at least not anymore. Christmas stopped being a source of happiness for him when Bianca was not there to celebrate it, as did most every other holiday. Christmas was always her favorite, and he remembers stringing popcorn for his and Bianca’s tree, a smaller, secondary version of the giant spruce in the hall that they had in their room. He remembers painting ornaments, swirling the colors in the clear glass balls until they shone like stained glass, filling others with metallic ribbon, tying silver bows on the ends of the branches.

He stands at the base of a twelve foot tree that is no longer real, instead a boxed, faux replacement, the ornaments bought already decorated, the ribbon already tied, the presents all in boxes with slip-on lids and no longer wrapped with care. It feels like a sham.

Hazel will see a gorgeous, immaculate tree, beautiful, high end presents, and the breakfast of Belgian waffles that the staff laid out on the side for them to eat while they ‘unwrap’ presents that were never wrapped in the first place, just folded in tissue paper and placed in bags and boxes by staff because he _knows_ neither Persephone or his father will have bothered doing it themselves. She will see this as a heaven of sorts, a beautiful holiday of family and joy. He knows she will feel the ache of her mother’s absence, just as he feels the utter hole in his chest where Bianca and Maria used to be. She has found another family, though, and she loves them enough to fill the gaps where they don’t love each other, and they manage.

Nico unveils her gift as soon as they start, watches her tear the paper away and gasp, watches her eyes, glossy with tears, light up with her smile, her hands flying up to her mouth before she can even finish pulling away the wrappings. He’s smiling himself, foreign as it feels, because he’s still able to do this for her, and that’s worth the whole painful break. She’s full on crying when she finally sees the full piece, and her hug squeezes the air out of his chest in the best possible way. She’s babbling thanks and he’s proud he could give her so much, a small token in comparison to all she has done for him.

No other present matters, not to him, except hers and the gift she gives to him.

She put together a photo album for him, a beautiful antique-style book with parchment for paper, and the photos begin with portraits of his mother, progress onto pictures of her with Hades, with Bianca, with him, with all of them together. He can’t breathe, not when he flips closer to her death. Hazel did not make it difficult to transition, though; there is no jarring disappearance of her amongst the pictures because she shifts from featuring Maria to featuring photos Maria had taken of him and Bianca, and then it is him and Bianca without her, a little more subdued but still with each other. Bianca’s portraits are stunning as she ages, all of her school pictures and snapshots of her, of things she’d snapped polaroids of, pictures she’d taken of him. Onward from her photos of mundane things with flashes of his hand or his old jacket, there begins to be photos Hazel took, little things like the candles on the birthday cake Nico made for her (one of them has been fixed to the page, melted down halfway and unmistakably the exact one he’d used, and his heart clenches because he didn’t know she’d kept them). Smoothly, she is introduced, smiling next to him or planting kisses on his cheek, and there or portraits of her mixed in as well. She leaves off with pressed flowers—forget-me-not, heliotrope, honeysuckle, lady’s-mantle, lemon balm, morning glory, marjoram; the flowers are beautiful even if they do not match, and he knows she has done her studying on the language of flowers that his mother taught him and Bianca, because the bouquet is a poem of love, affection, remembrance, and sympathy. He can feel the hot tears on his cheeks when he finally gets to the end, and he uncurls to pull her into a hug, swallowing because his voice won’t work but he knows she understands with the way she hugs him back harder.

***

The waffle brunch leaves them full and content, or at least everyone but Nico, who only ate a quarter of a waffle and passed it off as being too tired. No one argues, and Hazel puts on _A Christmas Story,_ so he curls in front of the projector and lets his mind wander.

He just has to make it through dinner that night and he can have Jules-Albert take him back, he doesn’t have to wait for Boxing Day, or, _gross_ , all the way to New Year’s Day. He can do it, it’s just sitting as silently as possible and battling with his father for who can be the most detached, it’s really not that hard.

This is what he repeats like a mantra for the duration of the film, and when he goes up to his room for a nap, and as he’s walking down to dinner in actual clothes that are paint-stained skinny jeans and a sweater with dancing skeletons on it that he knows will piss his father off. The only thing his father can approve of is that he’s at least still wearing all black.

Hazel laughs at the sweater, too, which makes it even better. He takes his seat with a flat expression, his smile at Hazel only a flicker; a tug at the corners of his lips but nothing he put actual effort into. He picks up his fork in lieu of waiting for some tradition like saying grace, as he’s not religious and not about to start, let any god or gods smite him. He spears a tomato, locks eyes with his disapproving father, and takes the bite.

Persephone has yet to even join them. It’s disrespect, eating before the last guest has sat down, and he knows it, so he takes another bite of his salad just to prove a point. Certainly, he’s been more mature, and he’s had less petty ways of spiting his father and forcing an acknowledgement, negativity better than nothing at this point. It’s also the first time his father has looked directly at him since he arrived, and he watches the anger grow as he takes bite after resentful bite, and it’s a silent war, now, until Persephone will take her damned seat.

He doesn’t know where she is, the creamy dressing makes his stomach turn, but he’s got a fucking point like a spear and he’ll be damned if he doesn’t drive it home. _Look at me,_ he challenges. _I am your son, I am the ghost of my sister, I am your remaining child, the constant reminder you cannot get rid of, with their skin their hair their eyes their smile Bianca Maria Bianca Maria._

One of his inky black curls tumbles down from where he’d had it held back by willpower and the occasional brush of his fingers, and it blocks a bit of his vision, breaks the constant stare halfway, just for a moment, enough for the taste of the dressing to really hit him and he can barely swallow. Finally, finally, Persephone sits, and he feels her surprised indignity at his half-finished salad.

He drops his fork, letting the silver clatter against the porcelain plate, and leans back. He knows Hazel is watching this silently, watching the storm on their father’s face and the sheer calm on his own. He doesn’t pay mind to her, though, or to Persephone, because they don’t matter in the moment. All that matters is the anger boiling in black eyes across the table, the slow, disappointed, disapproving twist of the mouth, and the slight shake of a head.

But he’s the center of attention, but he’s _seen,_ but his father has no choice but to stare at him because he’s rude, and it’s a victory and a loss in a war he didn’t want to have to fight in the first place.

He stands up and leaves the table as soon as Persephone touches her own fork, leaves his chair pushed back and his plate untouched in its half-finished state, and walks away. He heads right up to his room, grabs his ba, and heads back down to the doors. He’s done here, he’s done what he needed to do, it’s time to leave.

Only, Hazel catches his arm in the hall, just mere feet from the door, and her expression is soft and hard to read and he has to swallow before his own breaks. She says nothing, just pulls him into a tight hug, and he knows that she can sense it and she won’t address it if he doesn’t want her to.

When he pulls away, when he leaves, his chest aches.

***

His room is cold, the winter chill seeping into the marrow of his bones and making a home in his chest, behind his ribs and encasing his heart. He lays in his bed and tries his hardest to remember how to breathe when his lungs have frozen, when his heartbeat sends cracks through the ice and the broken edges filter his blood and it moves slower, sluggish.

He stares at the ceiling and lets his mind find shapes in the popcorn texture, lets himself go listless, frostbite pins and needles in the edges, the white noise numb in his limbs and the empty absence in the hollows of his body, and he is nothing but blank existence, matter existing in a stasis, languor.

***

Jason returns after New Years, and he doesn’t remember his week at all. He doesn’t remember showering, eating, sleeping, but he must have done it, because he is able to stand he is clean and he’s the exact same state of exhaustion as is his new normal, not more so. He doesn’t really register January as having happened, he doesn’t know the date, it feels like nothing and it doesn’t matter, so why does he care?

Jason asked him something, he thinks. Blue eyes are concerned behind metallic, thinly framed glasses, and Jason’s little scar is tilted a little downward so he’s probably frowning. Nico’s processing at half speed, and the world is in slow motion, the air he breathes could be jello for how thick it feels in his throat.

Jason’s fingers touch his arm, his wrist, where it lies on his bed, and everything cranks into full speed as he reacts, pulling away quickly and widening his eyes as sound slams into him and he can hear other voices in the house, and it’s too much at once. The fabric of his hoodie feels rough, Jason’s fingers left burning imprints, the voices could be screams for how they ring in his ears.

The world tips, tumbles, and he is disoriented, and it takes a second for it to make sense; he’s flinched so far back he’s fallen off his bed, knocked his arm on his dresser and he knows it’ll bruise, the throb is like a steady beating pulse, fading in tiny increments with each new wave.

Jason rushes around the edge of the bed to crouch near him, and if it was concern before, it’s worry now. “Shit! Are you okay? I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to startle you!”

The first word out of Nico’s mouth in 2016 is the pinnacle of elegancy, of poise, of charm, and it is his epitome, nothing can top this moment; “ _Fuck._ ”

Jason blinks. “I’m _so_ sorry.”

“Ow,” Nico says in way of a reply, sitting up slowly until gravity is where it should be and the floor is beneath him. “Jesus, fuck.” He’s beauty, he’s grace.

Jason reaches out like to touch, but he seems to think better of it, hand hovering just over his bicep. “Do you, can I help you up?”

“No.” Nico’s in no mood, apparently. “No, don’t touch me. I got it. Why are you in my fucking room?”

“I knocked,” Jason says quickly, hand withdrawing like he’d been burned. “A lot. Loudly. And I called your name. You didn’t answer, and it was unlocked, so I peeked in to tell you my friends are helping me move my stuff back in and we’re going out after so we won’t be here long, but you…” He trails off for a second, and he searches Nico for answers they both know he won’t get. “You didn’t even blink.”

“I was thinking,” Nico snapped, pushing up off the floor irritably.

Jason follows him up, the inches he has on Nico making him keep going even when Nico’s standing straight. “I’m sorry,” he repeats again.

“Get out.”

“I’m sorry!”

“Leave!” Nico says, voice rising, and he knows, he can feel how unreasonable he’s being, but he’s on edge because he doesn’t know the date or the time and there’s strangers in the apartment and Jason’s _in his room,_ and he doesn’t let _anyone_ in his room, Hazel’s allowed in his room at the mansion because it’s not really his at all, just a bed he sleeps in when he has to.

Jason actually scurries out, the door swinging closed behind him, and Nico sits on the edge of the bed carefully, rubbing the soon-to-be bruise on his arm.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gonna keep my talking to the end where I can, for the most part. Alright, tell me what you think, and ask any questions you have, anything you want to see expanded on or things that leave you curious. I'll try to weave in the answers in coming chapters, I don't like having loose ends. There are things I'm vagueing about purposely, though, and I will clarify later, and those thing I'll mention in my reply comment so you know. Thanks for reading!


	3. Hiraeth

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fleeing, snowstorms, hot chocolate and pretty boys, help in the kitchen and the beginning of a journey of discovery.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (n.) a homesickness for a home to which you cannot return, a home which maybe never was; the nostalgia, the yearning, the grief for the lost places of your past.  
> \--  
> It's Welsh, with technically no direct English translation, but fuck it. I used it anyways.  
> \--  
> Alright, kiddos. In a way, this is less triggering that the previous two chapters, at least in terms of introspective depression, but there are hints at other triggers, and please feel free to message me about any concerns if you need to know exactly what they are beforehand.

The voices are a hum, a dull murmur outside his door, and he tries to wait them out, but his temper is sparked and he feels so hilariously out of place, so he pulls his leather jacket over his hoodie, shoves his socked feet into his combat boots, grabs his keys and slips out, locking his room door behind him for good measure. 

He can feel the burn of gazes on his back, and a tangent part of his mind wonders how they must see him; small frame, layered in monochromatic black for the cold, curls in disarray and pallid skin; he must fit a number of stereotypes. He focuses, brushing the stray thoughts aside and pulling the key from the lock, stuffing his hands in his pockets, and turning to head to the actual front door, refusing to glance at the two guys standing in the living room with Jason. He won’t acknowledge them because acknowledging means admitting he knows they exist, and he is much too much like his father in this moment, so he pushes his thoughts even farther away and steps out into the bitter cold of the snow outside.

There’s silence behind him as the door shuts, but he won’t think about it, already walking away before it even clicks into the frame. The snowflakes tumbling down are already falling at a decent speed, and there’s shortly no shelter above him and he’s under the open sky, and it’s like phosphenes with his eyes having never closed. He doesn’t have a destination, but he needs to move, not only to get away but to keep momentum, keep warm, he hasn’t enough of his own body heat anymore and he’s always cold and it doesn’t matter how many layers he stacks.

For a while, he’s fine. The snow swirls around him, his nose and his cheeks grow red and unfeeling, he can taste the briskness in the air, his breaths cloud out in eddies of smoke. He turns, in a bit, to work out where it is he’s ended up, but he doesn’t recognize anything because the snow has picked up speed, flurrying instead of falling. The wind wraps greedy fingers in the edges of his jacket and tugs, and he uses fumbling fingers to zip it up. 

The two seconds it takes to pull at the metal are enough to be painful, and for the sake of dramatics, he doesn’t remember what it’s like to feel warm. It’s not a lie, truly, but he remembers what it was like to not be  _ this _ cold, the kind of cold where the tips of his fingers burn. He pulls up his hood, and it’s yanked back right after, and he can’t see farther than a few feet. His wrists, from where the wind sneaks into his sleeves, ache terribly, almost more so than his fingers, for entirely different reasons.

Fear becomes a tangible thing, crawling up from his feet to clutch at his neck, at his throat, and he realizes there’s no safe way to get home because he doesn’t know where he is. He starts to move again, yanking his feet from the powdered white trap of the ground and running, panting out more smoke that makes his field of vision even shallower.

A building rises out of the whitewhitewhite, and windows glow feebly with a bright orangey welcome, and it takes until he’s stumbling in the doors to figure out that it’s the coffee shop and he’d followed his usual path onto campus without realizing. He’s dizzy with the temperature change of freezing to very warm, and his head spins, and, because he’s terrified of this exact kind of thing, he collapses.

***

It ‘s not a total blackout, just an intense head rush, enough to knock him down to his hands and knees and disorient him thoroughly. He tried to swallow back the nausea, tries to focus on anything but the tilt-shift of his sight and the lurching in his stomach. 

The toe sections of a pair of beat-up Chuck Taylor’s enter his vision, on the edges, where black spots keep fading in and out. And then the owner must kneel, because there’s knees in blue jeans, and a tanned hand reaching towards him. He sways back, ending up sitting on his heels, blinking to try and clear away the daze.

“Hey,” says a voice, soft and gentle and a little accented with something. “Hey, are you alright? You’re shivering really bad, how long were you out there?” 

Southern accent, he places. He doesn’t answer yet, rubbing his eyes, and then his temples, and his vision and mind clear. Kneeling in front of him is the same boy that had knocked into his table the last time he was there, and this time he’s in the same apron all the baristas wear. Nico frowns slightly, not remembering him wearing it the last time, and the green is something hard to miss.

“Kid?”

Right, vocal replies. “M’fine.” 

“You don’t look fine.” Stranger's voice is deliciously smooth, and pretty enough to match his face. A strong jawline, lips just full enough to catch attention, and those blue, blue eyes. Freckles scatter over his nose and cheeks, and his hair is loose and mussed, much like Nico’s, only it looks intentional rather than lazy. 

Nico blinks, and begins to stand. “I am, though.”

Stranger, or Adonis, as Nico’s prone to nicknames when he doesn’t yet know names, automatically tries to help him up. He leans away from the touches and they don’t make contact, Nico standing on his own, a little wobbly but upright nonetheless.

“Can I get you something to warm up? A coffee? Hot chocolate? On the house.” Adonis is still near, like he’s afraid Nico will fall. Nico, in the process of turning a glare on him, notes a nametag:  _ Will. _

“I’m fine. I just need to wait out the…” He glances back, the wind howling outside. “The snow,” he finishes lamely, not knowing what else to say because he knows it’s not a blizzard but it sure as hell seems like it.

“Yeah, no, definitely do that. It’s gross outside," Will agrees quickly. “Are you sure you don’t want anything, though?”

“Positive.” He sits down at the nearest table and looks away, out the window, trying to end the conversation. It’s deserted, there’s no one in the small shop but him and WIll, who’s likely the one left to man the shop while everyone else finds better, warmer things to do and cozier places to be.

Will shifts, and slowly heads back behind the counter, getting the dismissal but still glancing over at him. 

***

It’s been half an hour. The snow is still  _ fucking  _ falling. 

He’s so bored. 

He doesn’t have his sketchbook, or even a sheet of paper, just the pen he keeps in his hoodie pocket. He ends up starting to doodle on himself, sketching out the bones beneath his skin in black ink and calmly coloring, transforming his left hand into a skeletal anatomy lesson. He doesn’t know how long it takes until he’s finished, and he glances at his phone only once the ink is dried. 

He’d eaten up another half hour, and he has a text from Jason. He opens it with a frown, not actually knowing what to expect. 

**2:38pm: Hey so sorry about the company thing I needed help with the boxes and we weren’t supposed to take that long even and sorry if I scared you**

He doesn’t really know how to reply, or even if he should. The text is twenty minutes old already, he could totally just leave it be. He doesn’t have read receipts on, so Jason has no way to tell if Nico’s ignoring him or ignoring his phone entirely, and he could go for either depending on how he feels when he gets back. 

He indecision leaves him clicking off the backlight and rubbing his face tiredly, leaving his phone face down on the table. He knows he’s being irrationally rude, but he doesn’t care. not much, anyways. He’s cold and tired and drained and he really just doesn’t want to have to deal with  _ anything _ but life’s a bitch and so here he is, sitting in a café at three in the afternoon regretting his life choices and watching the snow pile on the ground outside like fluffy hell. 

He’s so  _ cold. _

He doesn’t quite manage to repress his shiver, and he doesn’t even have to look to know Will caught it, because he can sense eyes boring into the side of his head. Fuck. He really, really doesn’t want to do human interaction today, was planning on avoiding it until school started on Monday (it being Saturday, giving him another entire day to prepare).

Nothing happens, though, and so he relaxes again, staring out through the glass. 

Well, until a cup is set down on the table, and he has to look (glare) up at Will, who immediately raises his hands up in surrender. “Hey! I’m not asking for payment or comment, but you’re still freezing and it’s not gonna get any warmer, so I made you a hot chocolate. It’s...a peace offering.”

Nico glances to the cup, and back up, and back down again, trying to process. He doesn’t know what kind of reaction Will expects, but it’s evidently not Nico’s silence and confusion. Will’s hands lower, and he watches curiously as Nico pulls his own hands from his pockets and wraps them around the warm cup, the skeletal ink over his plain fingers to keep from smudging everywhere. 

Nico takes a careful sip, and fights the urge to melt into the chair at the immediate comforting warmth that spreads through him. He doesn’t know what kind of hot chocolate Will made him, but he’ll bet it’s not on the menu because he can taste cinnamon and cream and caramel. It’s amazing, and he doesn’t even bother to reply in favor of taking another sip. Will’s smile could probably power the entire café, and Nico has to look away to keep his cheeks from reddening, as the boy is even prettier up close when Nico’s not about to pass out. 

“Let me know if you want a refill!” Will says happily, turning and heading back behind the counter. Nico’s grateful he didn’t try to sit with him or start a conversation...and the hot chocolate is heavenly, so he’s grateful for that, too. It was an incredibly sweet gesture, and it reminds him of something Bianca would do, and he feels the ache in his chest that always comes when he remembers something about her. 

***

He stays until around three thirty, and Will sets a refill on the table when he notices Nico finished the first at three fifteen. It’s so sweet it almost hurts, and Nico, when throwing out the first cup before leaving, slips a twenty into the tip cup when Will’s back is turned. 

***

When he gets back home, Jason pokes his head out of his room and opens his mouth. Nico shakes his head, not even properly looking over, sipping the hot chocolate and heading for his room. Any more talking to can wait until the next night, when he accepts the fact that school is starting and he has to face the world again. Until that point, he plans to curl up in his bed and finish the last season of  _ The Vampire Diaries _ on Netflix, because he’s trash for terrible angsty romance with pretty boys and a decent plot. He’s already current on Teen Wolf, so he doesn’t have pretty shirtless boys to see, and he’ll make do with what he has to and try not to curl up, watch nothing, and wallow in hiraeth like he’d been doing for the past week. 

He’s had about enough of that for the next several years, probably, and he’s gonna do his damndest to try not and slip back into it for at least the next thirty six hours until he can throw himself into school again and pretend he doesn’t have any additional problems. 

***

Sunday night, he makes dinner, and Jason stands at the counter and waits through a solid fifteen minutes of Nico trying to ignore him. Nico gives up when he realizes Jason probably has the patience of a Buddhist monk and finally looks him in the eye. “What.”

“I wanted to say sorry again, in person.” Jason says, tone calm. He’s standing casually, hands resting on the counter, posture open. Nico can’t read any anger, annoyance, apathy, anything. It feels relaxed, and his usual nerves don’t rise at all. It’s a new thing, talking to someone that isn’t Hazel and not feeling his chest start to tighten or his heart speed up. 

“Oh,” he says, belated, realizing he’d just been staring in surprise for a moment or two. He ducked his head, focusing again on cutting up the carrots he’s tossing into a pan with a few other vegetables to stir fry. “I mean, yeah. Okay. I’m not mad anymore, I don’t really care.”

“That’s fine, but I do, and I wanted to stress how inconsiderate it was for me to suddenly have people over when I let you get used to not having to worry about it. I was rude, and I’m sorry. I should have called ahead.” Jason honestly doesn’t sound judging, like most other people would when faced with Nico’s distaste for surprises and change. He doesn’t sound frustrated, either; he sounds very sincere. It’s a little jarring, in a good way, if that’s a thing. He’s not sure. He’s a little shaken. 

“I-um, Jason, it’s fine. Really. It’s, it’s whatever. I’m fine.” His sentences are chopped, halting, and he knows it. It’s how his thoughts feel. He really doesn’t know how to react. 

Jason grins, warm and friendly. “Alright. Sorry if this is a little weird, I know I usually don’t try to make you interact with me, but I wanted to make sure I apologized properly. Are we cool, then?”

Nico nodded, picking up the cutting board to slide the carrots into the pan and setting both it and knife down to roll his wrist, which aches from the slicing of all the vegetables and the four or so hours he’d spent working on a piece for his portfolio before this, and from the damage he’d done to it before all of that, even. 

“Do you...can I help?” Jason asks, and Nico looks up, surprised. 

“I’m sorry, what?” Nico asks, stunned into silence for a good moment beforehand. 

“I asked if I could help,” Jason clarified. “Can I? It looks like your wrist is bothering you and I can chop things up, at least.”

“You mean it’s the only thing you can do without burning the kitchen down?” It’s out of his mouth before he can stop it, but instead of angry, Jason looks pleasantly surprised at the snark. 

He laughs before Nico can try damage control, nodding. “Exactly! If you think I can be trusted with sharp objects, which is debateable, I’m ready and willing to help!”

Nico glances at the small bunch of vegetables left to cut and carefully rolls his wrist, wincing at the ache. He knows he should ice down the slight swelling and then bathe it in epsom salt if he didn’t want to damage it (though that might be more pain than it’s really worth), and with a sigh, he flips the knife and holds the handle out towards Jason, noting the small flash of alarm that had lit Jason’s blue eyes when the metal had flashed in the air. He’s too familiar with handling sharp things, probably.

Jason doesn’t comment on it, though, merely taking the knife carefully and moving around the counter. Nico turns to the freezer, pulling it open to fish for one of his ice packs. “Everything’s washed. Cut it all to relatively the same size as what I have in there so nothing takes longer or shorter to cook.”

“Yes, sir!” Jason chirps, saluting when Nico turned back, ice pack in hand. Nico can’t help but roll his eyes, pulling one of the kitchen towels from the rail to wrap the pack and set it against his sleeve, over his inflamed skin, holding back a sigh of relief. 

“If you don’t mind me asking, did you hurt it?” Jason asks, pulling celery stalks onto the cutting board and lining them up. 

Nico again finds himself practically blurting the answer without realizing at first, and he doesn’t know what to do, but some shred of self-preservation keep part of the truth still hidden. “Yeah, but a few years ago. Slipped off of my roof and caught myself with one hand, my wrist got hella sprained or whatever and now it acts up if I’m working for too long. I mean, I have weak wrists anyways, so I dunno if that injury plays into it at all or if I just overuse it.”

“What were you doing before this that involved so much...wrist movement?” Jason’s tone is weird, and Nico very abruptly realizes Jason doesn’t know he’s an art major and that his mind has jumped to where every teenage guy’s mind goes whenever someone mentions wrist movements. 

His face is on fire. “Drawing! Shit, ew, what the fuck? I’m an art major! I draw a lot!”

Jason’s laughing, hard, and has to stop chopping to avoid lopping off a finger by accident. “I’m sorry! Why ew?”

“Is that really what you think I do all day??” Nico asks, indignant. Jason’s laughter is loud again, filling the kitchen with warmth, and he can’t find the usual simmering rage he has when he’s being laughed at. 

“No! I just, you having a random wrist injury when you’re locked in your room all day? And I’ve got nothing to go on to help explain it? I’m sorry!” Jason’s still laughing, interrupting himself as he speaks. 

It’s not hostile. It’s not scary. Nico can feel his own lips twitching at the corners, can feel the laugh bubbling up in his own throat, and he doesn't understand. 

So he runs to his room, slams the door, locks it, falls on his bed, and screams into his pillow like a twelve-year-old that just got told they couldn’t have a sleepover that weekend because their room wasn’t clean enough. 

***

Jason knocks lightly at the door several minutes later, the raps as hesitant as his voice. “Nico? I’m sorry if I upset you. I finished cutting everything up, but if you don’t want to cook I can container it and order in for tonight.”

Nico would punch the wall if he didn’t have to worry about really fucking his wrist up beyond all repair, he thinks. Just...one good hit. One punch, fueled by all the confusion and frustration that’s making his head spin like a carousel from hell. 

“I...I guess I’ll start getting containers, then?”

“Fuck,” Nico says to the ceiling, flat. The movement that had started outside his door pauses. He repeats himself for good measure before rolling off his bed and unlocking his door, pulling it open to reveal Jason’s stunned expression. 

“I’m bad at people,” Nico says, almost like an announcement, but still flat. “Really bad. So I left. But I’m not...mad at you.” His hand, on the door, fidgets uncontrollably and twists the lock back and forth. 

“Oh.” Jason composes himself, posture relaxing. “Okay. Sorry for startling you, then. It’s hard to tell what’s too much, but I’m trying.”

He’s trying? Nico blinks, processing that and trying to figure out what it means. Trying what? Trying to...figure him out? Why? 

“I want you to feel like this whole place is a safe space,” Jason continues, gesturing back towards the kitchen and living room they share. “Not just your room. I’m working on making  _ myself _ a safe space, if you want it at any point.”

Nico’s brain feels like circuitry overloading, fizzling and popping. Safe space? It sparks, toomuchtoomuch. Why a safe space? Why is Jason trying? Why does Nico matter to him at all, let alone that much? Toomuchtoomuchtoomuch. 

Jason backs up a few steps, and Nico suddenly drags in a breath he didn’t realize he’d needed, swaying a little on his feet. Jason’s hands are held out, loose, palms up, and Nico relaxes a little more as he gasps for breath. Safety, that’s what Jason’s trying to convey. Nothing here is going to hurt him. Nothing here is out to get him. That’s what body language is for, unsaid signals.

He drags in a few solid breaths, leaning against the doorframe, pushing his hands into his hair and trying to figure out what the hell had even set him off in the first place. Something about Jason being so startlingly different, maybe, because Hazel does all she can but she has no experience with what’s wrong in his head and Jason...Jason seems to understand something.

He’s so out of his fucking depth with this whole ‘dealing with people’ shit.

“Breathe with me,” Jason says quietly, soothingly. “In, one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Out, one, two, three…” He goes on counting, and Nico finds himself obeying, head clearing as he does. It’s weird, but it works, and Nico’s never...never had someone try to help him calm before.

“Better?” Jason asks when he lifts his head, and Nico nods a little in answer, cheeks red.

“What made you do the...the counting thing?” Nico waves his hand a little vaguely.

“It’s called seven-eleven breathing. It’s a technique to combat anxiety and high emotional stress. It works by calming you down and relaxing your mind, and there’s some science-y stuff with the autonomic nerve system and your brain.” Jason shrugged, shoving his hands in his pockets. “It’s a useful technique to know, even without an anxiety disorder.”

“Anxiety disorder? Like, a thing?” Nico blinked, confused at the weird phrasing. “Like a test coming up?”

“No?” Jason’s head tilted slightly. “Like Generalized Anxiety Disorder. Or PTSD.”

“PTSD is a war thing, though.” Nico pointed out. 

Jason stared at him for a few moments, up until the point where Nico started fidgeting again, lock clicking in and out. Jason blinked, shaking his head slightly, like he was dislodging a thought, or train of thought. “Okay. You haven’t taken a psych class yet, have you?”

“No. I’m not planning on taking it until next year, I think.” Nico frowned. “Why?”

“Can I make you some tea or some coffee or something? I want to explain a few things. Stuff you might find...useful to know.” Jason’s indirect answer is light, easy. It should make Nico nervous, and it does, but not nearly as much as he would normally feel, which, odd.

“I, okay? Coffee, I guess, but I’ll make it. What’s so important?”  He pulls his door shut behind himself, accepting that he isn’t going to be going back in to lay on his bed and stare at the wall anytime soon.

“Mental health,” Jason says, like that narrows it down or something, and like that has anything to do with whatever weird thing Jason’s trying to get at.

Great, Nico has no idea what the fuck he’s talking about.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, I'm sick, it hurts to breathe in through my nose on the rare times I actually can, have a chapter.  
> ...Shit, guys, we're already at 10k. Look at me go!


	4. Athagazoraphobia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Nico and Jason talk, Nico meets Will again, shit happens and I need all the reactions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Athazagoraphobia  
> (n.)  
> The fear of forgetting, being forgotten or ignored, or being replaced.

Nico has a cup of coffee and an overhanging distrust of the general direction this conversation is taking. Jason has a half-empty bottle of orange soda and an open expression that does nothing to make Nico more comfortable.

“So,” he says, and it sounds like a breath before a speech. “Mental health, like sex, is a subject that is artfully avoided in public education because addressing it makes some people uncomfortable. Unfortunately, this means a lot of important information doesn’t get shared, and people go about thinking there’s something wrong with them for all sorts of reasons; maybe they’re nervous a lot, maybe they don’t like sex, maybe they’re sad all the time and they don't know why. All of those are valid things, though, with names and a community of people who feel the same. You can even get help if you feel sad a lot, or nervous a lot, and therapy can give you methods to calm down and sometimes medicine to help balance the chemicals in your brain back to normal. The dislike of sex isn’t treatable because it’s not a bad thing, nor is it an illness. It’s totally natural, and totally normal, but because of the way society is set up, we don’t really hear anything about it and we think it’s not.”

Nico takes a sip of his coffee and tries to keep his expression under control, not sure what to make of this information. 

Jason continues on. “From what I’ve been able to see with you, it kinda seems like a lot of things make you really nervous or really upset at the slightest impact. And that’s okay, it’s not your fault. It just might mean that some of the chemicals in your brain are imbalanced, and it’s causing you trouble with controlling your reactions to stimuli like dealing with crowds or being alone, depending on how you work. I don’t want to offer you up any diagnoses because I’m not a psych major, just taking a minor in it, and I’m not that far along. I do want to give you resources to talk to or to research on your own, so you can see for yourself if anything you discover makes sense or feels like you. I want you to keep in mind that mental things like being sad or tired all the time aren’t supposed to be normal, and are treatable.”

Nico huddles up on the couch, taking another sip and fighting the urge to get up and run because Jason’s hitting a little too close to home. “Why?”

“Why, what?” Jason’s head tilted slightly. 

“Why are you doing this?” Nico repeated, clearer, and a little sharp. 

“Because I know what it’s like to struggle with feeling helpless against your own head, and it sucks. I want to help you, if that’s what you’re going through, like my friends helped me. I want to offer you support, so you don’t have to go through it all alone.” Jason ran a hand through his hair, leaning back. “I got into a car crash several years ago and fucked up my head, ended up with amnesia and not remembering anyone in my life except for my girlfriend and my best friend, who were in the car with me. My family and the rest of my friends stuck by me, though, helping me every day with little things, eventually triggering my memories until they all came pouring back.”

Nico winced at the story, relaxing just slightly when Jason didn’t lean forward again or try to push him, letting him process. He sat, staring vaguely in the direction of the front door, trying to figure out why instead of taking Jason’s words as bullshit, which should be his normal reaction, it feels like Jason’s explaining the shape of the missing puzzle pieces. 

He tapped his fingers on the sides of his Jack Skellington mug (a gift from Hazel for college), and let the warmth that had seeped in through his palms keep him calm. If he believes Jason—and he doesn’t know if he does—and believes all the shit in his head is because of some chemical imbalance, then...if Jason's implying what Nico thinks, something like therapy could fix it, because it’s like a sickness. Medicine is what people take when they’re sick, and it helps them get better. 

At the same time, though, Nico detests taking even cough drops, and has extreme difficulty trusting even Hazel with what he’s feeling, so he doesn’t know how he’s supposed to explain it to a total stranger just because they have a plaque with their name on it. It sounds invasive, and the total opposite of helpful. 

“What if I want it to go away, if it’s there, but I don’t want to talk to anyone?” He asks, finally, turning back to Jason. 

“Well, that’s not impossible, but it might be harder.” Jason sat up again, setting his empty soda aside. “Therapy isn’t for everyone. Sometimes it’s possible to just work with yourself and people you trust to reshape your life into something easier to deal with, and remove the pressure that’s making you upset. Does that make sense? I’m trying my best to keep it simple and explain what I can, but like I said, I don’t know everything.”

Nico nodded, tapping his fingers again. “I don’t want to talk to anyone. I...I’ll look at whatever you want to show me, but I'm not gonna guarantee that it’ll help or that this is a thing.”

“Of course. I’ll lend you my psych book and point out the right chapters, and I can give you the names of a few websites that will help.” Jason gives him a friendly grin. “And I'm here if you want to ask any questions or talk about it at all, or talk about anything. I haven’t given you any proof, but if you’re willing to try and trust me, I can promise you that I won’t ever break that trust.”

Jason sounds, looks, and even feels genuine, so Nico just nods. “Okay, I guess. Yeah.”

***

Jason’s right, on some counts. The more research Nico does, the more he finds explanations and names for what he feels. Depression, Generalized Anxiety, they sound like puzzle pieces. They fit into place, they make sense. 

He’s not pleased to discover it, really, but...it’s relieving, sort of. He’s not broken. He’s just...unwell, for lack of a better term. But because he’s unwell, he can work towards being well, logically, and he’s going to try, if nothing else. If it means he can start feeling less like sleeping and not waking up and more like waking up and starting a good day, he’ll do whatever it takes. 

Well, except talk to anyone. 

That just makes his chest tighten and his heart beat faster, which is the opposite of what he’s going for, so no. Anything else, though, within reason, he’ll try. 

Finding an outlet is the first thing he does, and it’s easy; he’s always loved to paint, and nothing better when he’s painting if he can get into a certain headspace. He tries playing music for the first time, though, while he paints, and he’s launched into that headspace immediately. He focuses on the songs, on the colors on the canvas, on the pull and push of his brushes. 

It’s nothing short of some of the most pleasant hours he’s had in a while, and he steps back to admire the painting when his back aches and he’s stiff from sitting on his floor in the same position for so long. The painting is definitely one of his best, though, full of emotion and intense, the swirls of black giving a voice to the turmoil in his mind and the face caught in it, hands over his eyes, help convey the message Nico wanted. 

He really loves it, he might actually be kind of proud of it.

***

He goes through nearly all of his canvases in two weeks, and his art professor is shocked but pleased, as Nico had been one of the slowest workers in the class and really only stuck to the outlines of assignments instead of trying to go beyond them. Suddenly, though, instead of pieces following guidelines, he has a series, a concentration the building towards an amazing portfolio. 

Success in anything is not really a feeling Nico finds familiar, as he tends to coast along with decent grades and work but never really something outstanding or stunning. To have people praise his work and his effort and his talent is surprising, and at first it’s uncomfortable, because it feels like lies. 

He’s proud of his work, though, and this is something he comes to realize when he can look at the pieces and see the image he had in his head instead of a hundred and two flaws. He’s starting to see why he gets compliments, because  _ he _ likes the things they mention, too. 

He’s  _ good _ at this, and it’s nice. It’s something he can  _ do,  _ and do  _ well,  _ and it’s not something like math or like history where to be good just takes dedication (more dedication than he will ever have, as fascinating as history is, and he does admire the intelligence it takes to be a human calculator) and time and the willingness to memorize. Instead, there are no rules he can stand by and follow for a guarantee of good work, no formula for pleasing the eye, and he can’t repeat the same process and expect the same results every time. It’s something of a constant experiment, a test of what he can do to this or to that that will make something look better, of what colors he can mix for new and which will end up as a murky gray tones. 

It requires him to always be sketching, always be doodling new ideas and trying new things, and it keeps his mind blissfully occupied and away from the thoughts that keep him down. He may not be smart, he may not be strong, or handsome, or good at public speaking, but he can use his hands and create things that are beautiful, and that feels like enough. 

For the first time, he feels like enough. 

***

Not every day is pleasant, though, not every piece comes out, and he’s forced to paint over it all and start from scratch, rinse and repeat until his frustration has tears rolling down his cheeks. Because, of course, how could he expect this to last? How could he expect this kind of routine to work for him? This isn’t a book, this isn’t a teen movie, he doesn’t get to escape his problems through the magical world of art. He can cut the pressure down and bury the issues, but they’re still there, hulking behind him and crooking clawed fingers into his shoulders, reminding him they are more than here to stay. 

He can feel the weight, the dragging tug, the insistence to lower to the floor and lay, unable to sink any lower, until the feeling passes enough from him to drag himself up again. He wants to give in, but at the same time, it’s a trap and he  _ knows  _ it's a fucking trap, so he shoves himself up and grabs his keys, stumbling into his boots and out the door before he loses the willpower entirely. 

He walks with no real destination, heading onto campus simply because he knows the area well, and he can wander freely without losing the way to get home. It’s chilly, but it’s not cold, and it’s the wind that brings the shiver down his spine so he stuffs his hands in his pockets after flipping up his hood and the most of it is blocked. He wants to run, but he knows the effort will only make him dizzy and he won’t be any farther from his problems because his demons are perched on his shoulders and chained into place. 

Fate seems to take his hand and lead him along at some point, because he finds himself outside the damn coffee shop again, and though he’d tried, he’d never been able to recreate that amazing hot chocolate he’d had around a month ago. Time, he noted, flew by when you were trying not to drown (not that that was wisely spent effort as he demons clearly would know how to swim). He hadn’t stopped back in since then, and it was less of him not being on campus and more him just not being present enough to remember it. 

His art had been an escape, and he’d been running on a different kind of autopilot. He still ate around a meal a day, when it got annoyingly dizzying to stand, and he still either slept too long or too little, but instead of wallowing, he’d been painting. In a way, he was being more productively trapped in his head. 

And then today he’d run out of fuel, and that coping mechanism crashed to a halt, and he was fucked, back to square one. Art block was a bitch, and he’d never had luck with breaking it quickly, and instead usually spent weeks to months with mediocre quality work that pissed him off more than anything else. 

With the ringing thought of being a fuck up again, he pushed open the doors and slipped inside, somehow totally unsurprised to find the place deserted with Will wiping down the counters. 

***

Will’s greeting is a blinding smile and a wave. “Welcome! Wow, haven’t seen you in here in a while, did you come for another hot chocolate?”

Nico shrugged, ignoring the tables in favor of taking one of the seats at the bar curving down one side of the counter. Will seems way too pleased with this, leaning opposite him with the same neon smile. “Kinda wish for something stronger.”

“Damn,” Will sighs dramatically. “We’re only a bar after midnight on the full moon. Sorry, fresh out unless you’re down for coffee.”

Nico can only stare at him for a moment, nonplussed at the reply, before blinking and forming a response. “Yeah, uh. No, your coffee probably sucks.”

“I’m offended.” Will states, mock serious, slapping his hand down. “American coffee is terrible everywhere, not just here.”

The quip surprises a laugh out of him, and Will again looks way too pleased with himself. “Wait, what? Don’t you  _ work _ here?”

“It’s work study. College is expensive as hell, and my scholarship isn’t a full one, so financial aid and work study are dragging me through with my ramen noodle diet.” Will’s wiping the counters again, seeming to need to keep his hands busy. “So I don’t work here because I genuinely enjoy the coffee, I work here because it was the least terrible of all the other jobs on campus, no one else wanted it, and it’s always dead so I can spend most of my time studying anyways.”

“That’s a lot of sharing to someone you don’t know.” Nico pointed out, for lack of a better reply. 

“Au contraire! I’d say I know you a little. You don’t handle changes in temperature too well, you like hot chocolate, and you’re a coffee purist with a taste for black clothing. We’re on our way to be great friends!” Will says, tone teasing and bright and so, so warm.  

Nico leans back a little, pulling his cold fingers closer, the sheer brightness pouring off of Will feeling a little too enticing for Nico’s comfort. There’s something about this human sunshine that makes Nico feel like there’s a magnetic pull to get closer to the heat, to find out what it feels like up close, and it’s all incredibly disorienting and very scary. He doesn’t know why he came back to the shop, or why when he saw Will, it felt right to have him there. 

They’d met twice, really, and just because Will’s been the only person to treat him like a real person and not a ghost or a fragile thing, like if he’s pushed too hard he’ll just snap, well. It’s fine. He doesn’t need it that much, and he can’t go around tossing trust onto strangers and expecting something like safety and stability. 

That’s not how the world works. 

“Tell you what,” Will says, interrupting his train of thought. “I actually get to close up shop in like fifteen minutes, so do you want to wait and I’ll clean up, and then I’ll buy you a drink somewhere? You really do look like you need one.”

Nico pinked. “I, uh. I’m not twenty-one.”

Will gave him an adoring look, hands pausing mid-wipe of the cash register. “That’s adorable, wow. I am, or I am on my ID, which is really kind of the same thing. I only have a few months until it’s actually true.”

“But how would we get into anywhere? I don’t have a fake.” Nico’s not as ticked off by the look as he feels he should be. 

“Easy. We don’t go to a bar, just a place  _ with  _ a bar. Or we stop by my dorm and I grab a bottle of something out of my stash and we sit somewhere and drink that. I don’t really mind either way, but since you brought it up, it’s been a shit week and I hate drinking alone.” Will shrugs and resumes cleaning. 

“Oh.” Nico swallowed, debating. The few times he’s gotten tipsy, he’d been able to feel something like calm and happy for an extended period of time, which had been nothing short of incredible. Bars, though—or places  _ with  _ bars, sorry—didn’t sit well. Too many people he wouldn’t know, too much social interaction. 

At the same time, Will is a stranger with a weirdly inviting persona and Nico knows next to nothing about the guy but here he is, ready to go and possibly get drunk together. 

This offer should not be nearly as tempting as it is, probably. 

Oh well. He’ll work on impulse control at a later date. 

“Yeah, fine. But only if you’ve got something less gross than whiskey or beer.” Nico stares at the counter while he gives his answer, shy. 

Will laughed. “Yeah, alright. Those aren’t for everyone. Um, I think I have some random fruity shit left over from a party a few weeks ago, how are you with, like, Peach Bacardi?”

Nico shrugged. “I don’t know. I’ve only ever had wine or made drinks.”

“Right. I’ll grab a few of the bottles of premixed shit I have instead. You don’t look like you’re much of a drinker, so I’m not gonna bother making it at a stronger level.” Will’s grin isn’t rudely teasing, just lighthearted.

Nico reddens anyways. “I’m not. My dad would probably pull me out of college entirely for drinking while I’m underage.”

“Well, let’s just not tell him, okay? We’ll keep it a secret.” Will winked. “And I won’t even tell anyone I got a cute freshman to a agree to drinking with me so I don’t have to do it alone.”

If Nico was blushing before, it’s nothing compared to the rush of heat he feels after that comment, and all he can do is open and close his mouth before lowering his head onto his arms to hide it against the counter. 

Will laughs again, and it’s still too warm, for it too feel like he’s being made fun of. “Jesus, you’re really too adorable, Lord help me.”

Oh, no, the Southern charm Will has laced through his every word is really just dripping off of that sentence, and Nico really can’t. For one thing, his head is not coming up off this counter until his face stops burning. 

***

Will, as it turns out, is a really funny guy when he gets tipsy. His jokes have Nico laughing until his cheeks hurt, the buzz from the alcohol in his own system keeping him from feeling self-conscious about it. It’s not jokes from a book, though, but rather in the way he tells stories, commenting and adding in anecdotes that leave Nico’s ribs aching. 

It’s the most relaxed he’s ever been with a stranger, really, and as the night goes on Will becomes less and less of a stranger. He talks about Texas, about a little sister and a single mom that balances both of her kids, a farm, and an Etsy shop specializing in handmade clothes. It’s fascinating, listening to Will talk, and Will doesn’t mind that he doesn’t say much himself. He fills the silences with even more lovely stories, words weaving a smile on Nico’s face and warmth into the air.

The conversation winds down when they’re both well and tipsy, though, and Will finishes his second beer, which he’d switched to after a few shots. He balances the bottle on the handrail of the bench they’re sitting on, neck down, and it takes him a rather adorable amount of time and concentration to do it. 

Nico takes this moment to kick the bench’s leg and listen to Will’s surprised curse as he catches the bottle before it smashes, turning the biggest puppy eyes on Nico. “You’ve forsaken me! How could you!”

Nico laughed, dissolving into helpless giggles as Will’s expression grew more dramatic. Will leaned close to knock shoulders with him when he finally laughed himself, and they ended up leaning against each other, catching their breath. Butterflies chased each other in Nico’s stomach, and he couldn’t tell if it was the alcohol or the contact.

Will was inches away, facing him, both of their cheeks flushed, and the crooked smile that slid over Will’s expression was almost dizzying. Nico swallowed, trying not to stare noticeably. “So I think I’m scared of forgetting what it’s like to feel like this,” he blurted.

Will studied him, intense and close and Nico’s cheeks were  _ so _ warm. “Yeah?”

“Yeah. I don’t want to. I don’t want to forget or...be forgotten.” He doesn’t know where the words are coming from, but the sun went down an hour ago, it’s cold, he’s nearly drunk and pressed up close to a beautiful boy and he’s never felt like this before.

“Athazagoraphobia,” Will breathes, pronunciation flawless even after drinking, and Nico remembers he’s pre-med, so complicated terms must be easy for im by now. “Fear of forgetting, being forgotten, being ignored, or being replaced.”

“Why do you know that?” Nico asked, after a moment, blurting it out just like the first statement.

“I wanted a word for what I was feeling.” Will replied simply. “Can I kiss you? I’m trying to focus on what you’re saying but your mouth is really distracting.”

Nico felt his lips part in surprise, and Will’s eyes dropped to them immediately. Heat rushed through him, and the butterflies reached a flurry he could equate to a blizzard. “Um,” He replied eloquently. “I, yeah.”

Will grinned wider and then they’re kissing, and Nico’s brain short-circuits. Will’s lips were hot against his, experienced, and the kiss is slow but deep. Somewhere along the lines, Will’s tongue traces along his bottom lip, and he parts his lips, and he’s dizzy in moments. He can feel the heat burning into his skin from where Will’s hands rest on his waist and his jaw, and nothing felt quite real.

Will pulled back hardly a moment later, though he left his hands in place, thumb stroking over Nico’s cheek. “Hey,” he said, soothing. “Breathe. S’okay. If you didn’t like that, it doesn’t have to happen again, and if you want me to leave, I will.”

Nico blinked, pulling in a slow breath and feeling his head clear a little. Will is patient, merely sitting next to him, facing him, hands pulled back into his lap as Nico got himself back together. The kiss had been easily unlike anything he’d ever experienced before, and...it was good, really good, but also really scary, and he felt jittery with the nerves running through him. Sure enough, when he lifted his hands to rub his face, his fingers trembled.

Will waited in silence, watching him with a sort of warm concern that felt weirdly calming. It felt safe, really, and with another few breaths Nico was able to calm down enough to think straight (well, really…) enough to reply. 

“I...I think I’m okay. Sorry. I...I don’t know what happened.” He dropped his eyes to the bench between them, shy and embarrassed.

“Was that your first kiss?” It didn’t sound judging or condescending, but...affectionate, almost, and a little surprised.

Nico nodded slowly.

“Oh, wow, okay. I’m sorry, I didn’t know, I would’ve asked you when we were both sober if I did, shit.” Will ran his hand through his hair. “Well. I am  _ really _ sorry if I fucked it up for you.”

“No, I...I liked it, it was just...really scary?” He shifted uncomfortably. “Like, I don’t know. I sort of felt like something was gonna happen to me.”

Will’s head tilted slightly. “You did? Like what?”

“I’m not sure.” Nico pulled at his sleeves. “Like, it...was wrong, or something,”

Will’s expression cleared into sympathy. “Ah. Okay. You know it’s not, right? It’s okay, it’s totally natural.”

Nico very suddenly felt like it was harder to breathe, chest constricting. “I, um. I.”

“Woah, hey, hey.” Will touched his arm, just below his elbow, fingers light. “It’s okay. Everything is okay, no one’s gonna come after you for this, no one’s gonna judge you. Not here, not now. It’s okay.”

Nico nodded a little, closing his eyes and trying to swallow past the lump in his throat. “Yeah, yeah. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t be,” Will soothed. It’s fine, it’s okay. We’re okay. Do you...want something more to drink, or no?”

Nico shook his head, cracking his knuckles just to have something to do with his hands that wasn’t yanking his sleeves back to press his nails into the lines on his wrists and relieve the pressure he could feel building. It was all he could do to keep his breathing from getting any shorter...until Will’s hands closed around both of his, gentle, uncurling his fingers to massage his palms.

Nico’s breath wooshed out, and came in much easier afterwards. He opened his eyes, surprised, and Will continued the massage, head ducked to focus. Neither of them spoke, but...it wasn’t really necessary. Nico caught his breath and let his pulse slow back down, and Will massaged every millimeter of his hands, pressure warm and gentle like he’d been all night. 

He let go when Nico’s fingers twitched when he felt okay again, and Nico was blasted again with the full force of Will’s gorgeous crooked grin. He felt a blush bloom up, and he ducked his head, automatically squeaking in surprise when he felt Will press a kiss to his cheek.

“Better?” Will asked, cheerful.

Nico nodded after a moment, fixing his hair to have something to do.

“Good. I’ll walk you home, okay? It’s late, and I don’t really think you should be alone just yet when you don’t have to be, you know? Is that cool?” Will’s tone is so genuine, like he isn’t at all bothered by Nico pretty much melting down halfway from a simple comment and a kiss.

“I, um, yeah? You...You want to walk me home?” It doesn’t make sense.

“Yep. It’s dark, and you’ve had an emotional day if this is anything to go by, so I want to hold your hand and walk you home if you’d be gracious enough to let me, so I can try and leave you with a good note to end the day with.” Will’s grin is so natural, so honestly sweet, it aches in Nico’s chest.

He takes Will’s offered hand, though, and lets himself be pulled up. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry I'm such a trash updater please don't be mad aha fuck ;-;  
> Basically, instead of my usual load of three classes, I'm taking five this semester. I'm managing them, but it's really only about now that I've figured out what I can and can't procrastinate on and whatnot and what needs to be done each week. I'm taking Greek & Roman History for a humanities class, and I can't escape the PJO references (it's great, guys, oh my god I'm such a history nerd I lOVE THE CLASS SO MUCH).  
> Anyways, I'm no longer sick, and I'll hopefully update in less of a shitty time gap this time. By all means, fire predictions at me and get me just as hyped as you are over these two lmao. I love them, but sometimes it just feels like a wall in trying to work out what's going down next and what feels too rushed. I think this chapter turned out okay...?  
> Eh. You tell me, guys.


	5. Internecine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It gets worse before it gets better.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Internecine  
> (adj.) destructive to both sides in a conflict  
> \--  
> Trigger warning for liberal mentioning of blood and brief mentions of a blade in the beginning section, feel free to ask for an edited version or a summary or whatever if you don't want to risk anything (please stay safe). Also, I don't know anything about anything medical, I hate doctor-y things with a passion, so take anything medically suspicious in stride and pretend it's an au if it helps...

Will and the sun share a lot in common.

For instance, he also doesn’t like the dark. 

At all. 

It’s actually quite funny, when Nico figures it out. He has the grace not to laugh, but the way Will casts wary glances out at the shadows is kind of precious for a six foot blonde with a surfer’s build. It’s also in the way they walk in the puddles of light on the sidewalks, weaving here and there to stay in them and avoiding the patches were one of the lights has burned out or a tree blocks the glow. 

Will’s hand is wrapped around one of his, and it's nice. Will’s hands are just a bit bigger, considerably warmer, and Nico likes the way his fingers fit in the slots between Will’s. He’s usually not fond of physical contact, but it’s not weird right now, and maybe it has something to do with knowing how Will’s tongue feels in his mouth and maybe it doesn’t. 

The best part?

It doesn’t  _ matter.  _ He’s not overthinking it. Will’s rambling on about this weird movie he saw last week while he was a little high and the story is way too entertaining, partially because Nico likes watching the expressions Will makes as he acts out his reactions. He’s laughing harder than he probably should be, but whatever. It’s fun, he’s okay, he’s actually not worried about anything in the moment. 

He wants this feeling to last. 

***

Naturally though, it does not. Monday comes with classes and due dates and a fresh wave of stress that leaves him gasping for air on the cold floor of his bathroom, red drops staining the white tiles and the edges of his sleeves. 

He fucked up, he knows he fucked up, he wasn’t planning on this, but here he is. Distantly, he knows he should be getting the bleach and cleaning up the blood before the stains are permanent, but moving is so hard when he feels like the world is swaying even with his back on the wall and his legs pressed to the floor. He feels like he’s drowning, choking on oxygen and regret and fear, and nothing is okay and everything is toobrighttooloudtoomuch. 

He’s so scared. He wants to cry but he has nothing left to  _ give _ when life keeps taking, taking, taking from him. Nothing he does feels quite like enough, nothing he is or will ever be will be enough, and it’s--

There’s a knocking on his bedroom door. He can hear it from where he sits on the icy bathroom floor, the bathroom door cracked open. He wants to scream, to beg and plead and  _ I’m here please please help me make this stop _ but nothing comes out, nothing but a gasp. There’s a voice, but he doesn’t understand what it says, doesn’t have the ability to process it anymore. 

Oh, gods, it’s cold, he’s cold, he misses the warmth he’d felt when Will’s hand had been wrapped around his. It wasn’t like anything else, and it had felt so incredibly  _ safe _ and that is not, that is  _ not _ something he’s used to feeling. He  _ craves _ it, really, has been barely able to get it out of his head all weekend. Three days of texting the number Will had given him when they reached his door, three days of remembering what it felt like for Will to kiss him goodnight, three days of learning Will is incredibly funny and just as warm over text as he is in person. 

At the same time, he’s so terrified of internecine, of crashing and burning and losing yet another thing that feels okay, that feels good. Nothing good lasts, nothing gold stays. Not for him. He does not deserve those things, he has learned, and expecting them is naive and asking for pain when they inevitably slip away. This thing he has, the feelings Will gives him, they’re so nice now but he’s braced for the jagged rocks at the bottom of the fall. 

He remembers he’d been texting Will before this started, and when he glances around he can see his phone on the floor a few feet away, still unlocked, messages from Will filling the screen. He can’t read them upside down from here, but they’re short and some are in all caps. He doesn’t remember exactly what he said last, but he thinks it was something about his project stressing him out, the trigger for his explosion now. 

His bedroom door handle shakes, and then he hears the door open. The gasps he’s been getting in place of breathing speed up even more, because he  _ can’t _ handle someone seeing him like this, but he can’t move, he’s waiting for unconsciousness to claim him. He’s certainly dizzy enough. 

The bathroom door is pushed open, and, gods. His fucking luck. 

It’s Will, eyes wide as saucers and worried, face pale when he takes in Nico’s balled up and trembling form, fingers red dipped, blade loose between. Jason, right behind Will, curses and spins, darting away again, and Nico doesn’t blame him. He lets his head drop back against the wall, not wanting to watch Will leave, too. 

But then warm hands are gently taking the blade away, and he starts, fumbling for a better grip, but all this fucking blood makes it hard and Will flicks it away, into the corner, cupping his cheek with one hand and saying Nico’s name over and over until it clicks. 

“Why are you  _ here?” _ Nico snapped, harsh even though his voice shakes and so does the rest of him. 

“You stopped replying to my texts, and I got scared. Looks like I was right to feel scared, you left off on a really worrying note and didn’t answer when I asked if you were okay, though it showed the messages being read.” Will pulls a penlight from his keys and checks Nico’s eyes for...doctor-y reasons, probably, Nico’s still not able to hold much focus. 

Nico can’t bat his hands away, much as he wants to. He feels too heavy, and the warmth of Will’s hand on his cheek is too intoxicating anyways. It takes another call of his name to get his attention again. 

“When was the last time you ate, and what did you eat?” Will asks, tone steady and calm. 

“I...don’t know.” Nico doesn’t see a point in lying. Will would probably be able to read it, if Nico’s luck stays like this. Behind Will, Jason returns, and, what. Why?

A first aid kit and extra bandages, alcohol, and cotton is set down next to Will, and Will cracks the kit open immediately. “He needs food. Nico, this is gonna sting like hell, I’m sorry, but I need to clean these.”

Nico doesn’t say anything. Pain is not a problem for him, and he doesn’t want to eat, but his breathing feels too fast and too slow all at once and Will’s not touching him anymore, so it’s back to everything feeling wrongwrongwrong. 

Will’s hand wraps around the back of his wrist, though, and he sighs out a breath at the instant flood of heat, head falling back. He doesn’t really even feel the burn of the alcohol; his wrists have become numb to pain by now, and he’s more than used to breaking his skin up and down his arms, so this is not really an issue. Sure, it’s sort of all at once, but he can deal. 

Especially if it means Will’s hands stay on him, searing and real and so very grounding. 

Will doesn’t talk as he works, and his hands are clinical but incredibly gentle, almost featherlight. He cleans both of Nico’s wrists and then wraps them in bandages neatly, using extra cotton to clean Nico’s hands of all the stains, carefully wiping each finger. When he finishes, he catches Nico’s eyes and lifts both of Nico’s hands to press kisses to the backs of his knuckles. 

It’s such a sweet gesture that it makes Nico’s chest actually ache, and his breath catches. It stays caught as Will leans in and kisses his forehead next before starting to clean up the mess, putting everything away again. Jason steps in again, and he holds out a plate of neatly chopped fruit that Will takes and sets in his own lap, offering an apple slice to Nico. “Can you try to eat this, please? For me?”

Fuck. Nico can’t say no, and he’s pretty sure Will has guessed he wouldn’t be able to. Will’s been nothing but sweet to him, and it’s such a small request. Almost helplessly, he takes the slice, biting into it carefully. 

Will takes his free hand between both of his, folding heat around his fingers and massaging the back of his palm. It’s incredibly relaxing, and Nico chews complacently, swallowing without needing to think about it. 

Slowly, Jason sits close, making them into a little triangle, and he takes the plate to pass Nico a strawberry, allowing Will to continue the massage uninterrupted. It’s easily the nicest thing any two people have ever done for him, and as Nico takes the strawberry, the back of his eyes burn. 

“Why are you...being so nice to me?” He asks, because how can he not? This isn’t normal. 

“We care about you,” Will says gently. “When people care about each other, they like to make sure the other person is okay. You’re having a rough day, and so we’re here for you. It’s okay to need help and support, there’s nothing wrong with wanting it. You shouldn’t ever have to feel like you’re alone.” 

Jason nods. “Besides, friends take care of each other. That’s what we’re for, we’re here for you to lean on when you need to.”

He feels the first tear fall, slipping down his cheek, more and more following in it’s wake. “But, isn’t this...isn’t this bad?”

Will, who has shifted the massage up his arm in an incredibly soothing fashion, shakes his head. “Not in the way you’re thinking about it. I’m a little upset that the circumstances you’re in lead to this, because those circumstances are bad, but  _ you _ aren’t. You didn’t do anything wrong, nothing is your fault.”

Nico takes a grape from Jason, trying to swallow past the lump in his throat so his voice comes out clearly.  “Why does it feel like I am?”

“You’re sick,” Jason says gently. “And mental illness is mean. It tells you lies about yourself, about the world, and it hurts. It’s hard, because your own mind is betraying you, but you have us to help you fight it, if you’d like.”

Nico manages to swallow the grape, and he takes the apple slice he gets offered. He doesn’t know how to reply, so he doesn’t. 

“Is it okay if I pick you up?” Will asked. “I don’t want you sitting in here anymore. It’s really morbid looking right now.”

Nico shrugged a little, and before he could give it too much thought, Will’s arms slide under his knees and under his shoulders and he’s lifted up bridal style, his left side pressed against Will’s chest. Will’s really warm, really solid chest. 

It’s probably good he’s still pretty out of it and upset, honestly. Everything is processing at what feels like half speed, and if it wasn’t, he’d probably be a little hot and bothered right now. 

Jason follows them out to Nico’s room, pulling the door shut behind them and shaking his head slightly. “Damn, that alcohol was strong.”

Will grins, setting Nico down in the center of his bed. “Was it? I’m kind of used to the smell, I’ve worked at a clinic before.”

“Dude.  _ Incredibly _ strong. Like, I have a headache.” Jason sits on the other side when Will sits down. 

“A headache like a Percy headache or a headache like a fight with Thalia headache?” Will asks, looking amused, and Nico realizes they  _ know _ each other. Um, what?

“Thalia style, definitely.” Jason winces. “Don’t use that category around her if you don't wanna a bruise, by the way.”

Will laughed. “Yeah, no, I know. Trust me, I know.”

“When did you know each other?” Nico asks abruptly, staring between them like a tennis match. “I, um. I mean, how long have you known each other?”

Will and Jason trade curious looks. When Jason shrugs, Will answers. “Uh, high school, I think? Like, freshman year, or sophomore. One of the two.”

“I think it was freshman. History class, didn’t you sit between me and Percy?” Jason's head tilts a little to the side. 

Will snaps the fingers of the hand not holding onto one of Nico’s. “Right! Yes, yeah. That’s it. That was such a bullshit class, though, wow.”

“Yeah, it was.” Jason laughed. 

Nico...doesn’t feel left out, even though he doesn’t know what they’re talking about. Maybe it’s the way Will’s leaning in his direction, holding Nico’s hand in his, or the way they aren’t really looking at each other; Jason’s still passing Nico fruit, and he watches to see when Nico is ready for the next piece, expression open and calm and encouraging. 

Nico swallows again, flexing his fingers around a grape. “Oh. I...I didn’t know.”

Will shrugs. “I didn’t know you knew Jason. It never came up, it’s not really anyone keeping it away or anything.”

Jason nods. “Will’s a part of the group. It’s me, him, Percy, Leo, Piper, Annabeth, Reyna, and Calypso.”

Nico doesn’t recognize any other names, and he says as much with a small frown. 

Will laughs, kissing his temple. “Yeah, I didn’t think you would. You’re not really much for unnecessary social interaction.”

Nico shrugs a little, mildly defensive. “It’s hard. And annoying.”

“So’s college,” Jason groans. “I just remembered I have a test tomorrow, shit. I’m gonna bomb it.”

“Which means he’s gonna get a B, at lowest.” Will says, rolling his eyes. “Damn Grace genes. Thalia’s the same way.”

They banter around him, mostly, feeding him slowly and never quite letting him feel even the slightest bit alone. When the plate is cleared, he’s full, and he realizes how tired he is. It takes only a little shifting for his head to end up on Will’s shoulder, and Will’s arm becomes a warm weight on his waist. 

He falls asleep to the soothing sound of Will’s voice and heartbeat, wrapped in comfort and heat and safety, and he doesn’t dream. 

***

The following day is weird. When he leaves his room in the morning before class, Jason is at the table surrounded by books and papers, coffee and three cans of redbull balanced on the stacks, and he’s writing furiously. Nico pulls the door behind him shut carefully, not wanting to wake Will, who had ended up sleeping over when they realized it was past one in the morning when he was going to leave. Nico had spent pretty much all of the time Will and Jason talked sleeping on Will, and when it was decided that Will would stay, they’d ended up in the exact same position in a completely horizontal setting. 

Nico hasn’t felt this genuinely rested in years. 

“Grab a banana before you go, at least.” Jason says, interrupting Nico’s train of thought. He doesn’t look up from the page he’s scrawling notes onto at a rather remarkable pace. “If not more. There’s granola bars in the cabinet beside the cereal.”

Nico blinks, but does as he’s asked, grabbing one of each. He skips breakfast not out of a distaste of eating (he doesn’t care about it either way most of the time, his lack of will to move is really what leads to most skipped meals and sometimes he gets actually hungry), but out of the simple fact that if he stops even some of the momentum from dragging himself out of bed, he won’t be able to start it up again. 

Today, though, he’s actually awake, and still warm, seeing as Will’s arms had been around him the whole night and he can still feel the pleasant heat that had seeped into his bones. He peels the banana as he heads past Jason to the door, pausing as he’s about to close it again and leaning back in. “Good luck on your test, by the way.” He says it slowly, unsure. 

Jason looks up and beams at him, though, so it’s worth the awkwardness. “Thanks! Have a good day, yeah?”

“Yeah.” Nico nods, pulling the door shut and staring at it for a moment, because, oh. That was weird. He’s not used to mornings feeling like this. 

He takes a deep breath and breaks off a piece of banana, popping it into his mouth as he turns, walking to his first class. 

***

**Will Solace** 11:48 AM: I can’t believe you didn’t wake me up to say goodbye this morning :(

Nico rolls his eyes, knowing Will’s not serious, and types out his reply.  _ You looked tired as fuck and I didn’t know if you were a morning person or not. I don’t risk shit like that.  _

**Will Solace** 11:49 AM: I’m offended. I’m so totally the best kind of morning person, I wake up and I make breakfast for everyone. You missed out on breakfast with me!

Nico feels his lips tug into a smile. Damn him, Nico has a reputation of having the best resting bitch face in all his classes and Will’s ruining it. He types the reply quickly anyways.  _ Somehow, I survived. Jason made me take a banana and a granola bar, and that’s already more than I usually take. And I had class.  _

**Will Solace** 11:51 AM: Nico, you don’t understand; my pancakes are AMAZING. Now the only one I have for company is Jason, and he’s revising or whatever and he’s hit that point where if I breathe too loud he throws paper at me. It’s so rude

He has to fight to not roll his eyes again, bringing his phone closer and curling into the chair he’s in in the library, accepting that he’s abandoning his studying for now.  _ You’re still there? Why don’t you just...leave, and go home? _

**Will Solace** 11:52 AM: Because my roommates are all law majors or math majors or some equally boring shit and I make a point to be there as little as possible tbh

**Will Solace** 11:52 AM: You’re clearly not in class tell me where you are I’m bored

There’s no punctuation at the end of his messages, and yet Nico knows he has an iPhone, and all of them have a built in shortcut of tapping the spacebar twice to end a sentence, so he’s just being lazy. It makes Nico grin, and it shouldn’t even be something he picked up on.  _ I’m at the library, are you gonna come harass me? _

**Will Solace** 11:53 AM: Of course I am have you met me I’m on my way already

Of course he is. Nico laughs again, sitting up again to clean up, knowing they won’t be staying in the library for very long. 

***

He’s right; less than ten minutes after Will arrives, Nico’s back is against the back wall of an administration building and they’re kissing, Will’s hands hot against the skin of his hips and Nico’s hands tangled in his hair. 

He never thought he’d have a relationship like this, never thought he’d have this kind of happiness. He’s actually  _ giddy, _ butterflies swirling in his stomach and chasing each other as Will’s fingers flex, and his breath catches every now and then. It’s dizzying in the best kind of way, and he’s so pleased. He’s safer in Will’s hands then anywhere else, and maybe that says something about him because Will is a very new part of his life, but. 

What can he do? He rolls with it, because questioning this might make it suck and he’s had enough suck in his life for the next twenty years, thank you very much. He’s wasted enough tears and blood and sweat on overthinking, and he’s quite finished. 

Will laughs against his lips and pulls back, kissing his forehead. “Quit thinking so much.”

“I’m not!” Nico defends, despite the fact that he totally is. Will laughs, and that makes him laugh, and it feels like home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright. Shit happened, I got busy, and my fucking laptop died on me Wednesday (yesterday, 3/16) which is when I was actually going to update. The hard drive basically said 'fuck you' and fucking died. I lost everything as of right now, all my art and photos and most of my saved music, so fuck that shit, I'm pissed. I spent five or so hours crying and fighting and shit, but I now, through a lot of rather impressive financial wiggling and luck, have a Macbook Pro, my dream laptop, and I'm in as much heaven as I can be when I've lost everything I've ever saved to a laptop. Hoping I can recover some of it but chances are sucky :/  
> On that note, editing, writing, and posting have all become incredibly easier since this baby actually can LOAD the doc and load it fluidly, as well as handling all the things I multitask with with ease. It's great, it's cool, I'm alright. I'll hopefully be able to get this updated a little faster, since I won't dread fighting with a shitty windows laptop.  
> So there's all that. Additionally, this fic is not nearly as popular as TKAA, which is fine, I'll still write it, it's just slow with comments and I tend to lose track of it more often in the other workload of things I do on the daily. I'm trying to work more consistently, though. Please feel free to fire ideas, opinions, headcanons, notes, etcetera at me and let me soak it all up for inspiration.  
> One last thing; I'm no longer a teenager. I'm twenty now. I feel exactly the fucking same, lol.


	6. Nyctophilia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nyctophilia  
> (n) love of darkness or night

“The pink is new,” says Nico, staring at the front portion of Will’s messy blond waves, which is indeed now a bubblegum pink.

Will grins wide. “Isn’t it nice??”

“...Yeah,” Nico admits honestly. “It’s different, but I like it. What made you decide to...dye it candy pink?”

Will shrugged. “My cousin was dyeing hers and asked if I wanted some of mine done, so I said fuck yeah, of course I want pink hair! And now I have pink hair.”

Nico can’t help but laugh. “Of course, yeah, that makes perfect sense.”

“Of course it does!” Will takes his hands and spins them in a circle, and Nico laughs again when both of them stumble because of it.

Will’s happiness is infectious, permeating through Nico’s perpetual little rain cloud with ease. Nico’s feeling looser than he has in ages, without the constant weights on his shoulders dragging him down, down, down to the floor and below. 

Will leads him through a very bad attempt at a waltz, and they kick up the leaves from the park’s path, and Nico’s starting to feel the warmth of Spring. It’s comfortable, outside, and he was able to just do his usual jeans and shirt and one of Will’s hoodies, which he’d stolen a few days prior. It still smells like him, and he’s planning on keeping it until it doesn’t.

He genuinely doesn’t remember ever feeling so content with his life, and as Will spins him and catches him close, swaying together to the sound of the breeze through the trees, he laughs until Will’s lips muffle the sound. Both of Nico’s hands settle over Will’s shoulders, and Will’s arms wrap around his waist, and it’s amazing, it really truly is.

Will leans their foreheads together when they part, and his smile is as easy and as warm as always. “I like today. I like how much you’re smiling, lights up the whole park.”

Nico blushes bright instantly, and Will’s grin only widens, because that was probably his plan. Still, Nico’s grin doesn’t fade a bit, because it has no reason to.

Will sways with him, still, more slowly now, and he starts humming.

It takes a few moments, but Nico works out what he’s humming, and he has to hold in a laugh. “Are you trying to have us dance to  _ Carry On My Wayward Son _ ?”

“What? It’s a good song!” Will defends, laughing. “I was marathoning  _ Supernatural _ last night, it’s stuck in my head. Leave me alone.”

Nico does laugh again, stretching up on his toes to catch Will’s lips in a kiss, because the affection he has blooming in his chest for this boy feels more like home than anything ever has.

There’s flowers of fondness sprouting behind his rips, petals pushing through the gaps and making room around his heart and lungs. It’s so soft, the way Will holds him, but it’s so secure. Every smile, every kiss, it’s more sunlight for his garden. He’s never been good with plants, never had a green thumb and never really cared, but he doesn’t think anything could quell this foliage.

And so they dance to Will’s voice, swaying together and exchanging kisses as the sun sets around them, and he’s never done anything so romance cliché in his life, and he never wants it to stop.

***

It’s not that he has a thing about staying happy for long periods of time, it’s more of that life sorta kinda has it out for him and, really, he’s so goddamn sick and tired of it.

He gets a call from his father when he’s at the park again later that week, curled into Will’s side and reading shit for class because they both needed to study and Will was adamant about him getting  _ some damn fresh air, you still look like you haven’t seen the sun in years _ .

He answers after staring at the caller ID for a moment, stomach churning. His father never calls unless he’s fucked up, really, and he hasn’t done that in years. He gets letters, or messages relayed through Hazel, and once he got Jules-Albert hailing him down outside his school, which had been seriously worrying until it resulted in nothing more than Persephone needing him home for some bullshit prestigious business party.

His father’s voice is gruff, and his words chill Nico straight to his fucking core.  _ Have you seen Hazel? She’s missing. _

He’s gonna pass out.

He’s gonna  _ fucking _ pass out.

He feels Will’s hand press into the small of his back, present, reassuring, but it does nothing to quell the utter panic that swells in his chest. He doesn’t know what he says in reply, and he doubts it’s even more than a wordless sound, but his father continues nonetheless.

“She left for school this morning but none of her teachers have seen her, and neither has Frank. There’s no note, and none of her things are out of place or missing. She was dropped off at campus, but it seems somewhere between the car and her class, she disappeared.” Hades takes a breath, and it is measured, and Nico envies his father’s ability to be so detached. “I’ve got to go, I’m calling the police. You’ll be updated as we learn more.”

He hangs up, and Nico can’t breathe, and the phone falls from his hands. He knows he’s pulling in breaths, he can feel his chest heaving, but it doesn’t feel like he’s getting any oxygen. He genuinely wonders if this is what it feels like to die, and he can’t tell if Will’s touching him anymore. He’s done, this is it. It’s too much. This is the end of him.

The thoughts spin in his head on a loop, rapid and tumulous, and he’s trapped for what feels like forever. Eventually, though, he begins to notice his hair is being played with, and he’s leaning against something warm.

Will.

WIll’s hands are massaging his scalp and down his neck, over his shoulders and back up again. It’s ridiculously soothing, and he remembers how to breathe again after he registers this. He’s really, really tired, though, and he feels like he’s just run a marathon, which doesn’t make any sense. He’s pretty sure he hasn’t moved at all, since the call.

Oh, god, the  _ call. _

Hazel. 

_ Hazel. _

What could he  _ do? _ He could try calling her, but he knows that would be what Hades tried first, so it doesn’t seem like a very probable solution. He tries to take a deep breath, to think, but it’s like there’s a weight on his chest. His breathing cuts off, and he swallows, and--

Will’s mouth is hot against the back of his neck, and his lips are soft. 

The feeling is so unexpected it cuts off his train of thought completely, and he breathes in with no problem, barely even noticing. He doesn’t know how to react, so he...doesn’t. He just sits, breathing, letting Will’s hand in his hair massage his scalp gently and tug his head a little to the side, Will’s other arm circling around his waist, warm and heavy and incredibly grounding.

It’s less sexual and more sensual, more about the touches and the feeling of skin on skin. It’s a sensory experience, WIll mouthing the edge of his jaw, because he can feel the heat, smell the warm honey and citrus scent of Will, hear nothing but their breathing and his own heartbeat, and his eyes are closed. It’s heady, it’s lovely, he’s forgetting what it feels like to be anything but calm.

Both of Will’s arms finally settle around him, and he’s pulled back until he’s leaning against Will completely, sitting between his legs, his back to Will’s chest. Will’s chin drops onto his shoulder, and he kisses Nico’s cheek gently. 

He’s still tired, but it’s less immediate, and it blends into his usual exhaustion, so he can ignore it pretty easily. Wrapped in Will’s warmth like he is, he can think about the issue again without panicking. It’s still not pleasant, and his stomach still turns, but it’s manageable enough for him to grapple it into submission so he can be rational.

He dials Hazel’s number anyways, just in case she’s ignoring their father for some reason and can tell him she’s okay. 

It’s a lot of work to keep his breath from stopping entirely when it goes straight to voicemail, meaning her phone’s off, and Hazel’s phone is  _ never _ off, just in case someone needs her. Will’s fingers rub circles into his sides, though, and he’s able to pull in a ragged breath. He lets his phone drop into the grass, bringing his legs up to curl around Will’s arms, clinging, need to hang onto something real.

Will shifts, turning him and pulling him into a tight hug, and he buries his face against Will’s neck and explains in clipped sentences, none of them grammatically correct or even more than the jumbled words  _ Hazel, missing, gone, help. _

Will shushes him softly when he starts to cry, hands rubbing up and down his back, and they sit like that until Nico tires himself out.

Will helps him pack their stuff up, and takes his hand, pulling him up and curling an arm around his waist as they start the walk back to Nico’s apartment.

***

He’s so tired by the time they get back that he falls asleep as soon as he lands on his bed, and he wakes later that night with a note from Will on his pillow. It’s cute, just a notification that Will had class or he would still be there, and it makes Nico feels warm.

He remembers Hazel, though, and that feeling is gone rather quickly. 

Shit, just when things seemed to be going smoothly, too. Why is his life always  _ like _ this?

He feels sick again really quickly, and his head starts to spin, and he knows he won’t fucking get anything done with this much anxiety and fear whirling around.

He also know how to put it all on mute for a bit.

Jason and Will won’t like it, but...he will. And, really, it’s his body, right? And, and his mind, his choice. He knows what he’s doing, he’s certainly been at it long enough. He’s careful enough to keep from bleeding out, and even if he wasn’t, he would be today because he can’t afford to be anything but focused on finding and helping Hazel.

It’s with this rationale that he rolls out of bed and heads into his bathroom, opening the case in the medicine cabinet that has his blades and rolling his sleeves back. 

The scars and scabs don’t bother him anymore, really. He doesn’t really feel the pain, either, only the relief. He doesn’t remember the last time he was comfortable in short sleeves. He doesn’t remember what it was like to not flinch away from sudden touches, either (he does it even with Will). 

Thinking about it only makes it worse, and he has to take in a few breaths to make sure his hands don’t shake, because he can feel the nausea and the storm of anxiety just under his skin and he  _ needs _ to get it out before it explodes. He doesn’t know any other way, but that’s okay, he doesn’t need one because  _ this _ works, and he’ll take numb over panic any day. 

Silver is such a lovely color, and it looks so good with red. Red blooms like roses over white porcelain, drips from alabaster and it’s as heady as red wine. He feels himself sigh, but he’s more concerned with neat little lines in perfect rows, in shallow dips and blessed respite, of breathing deep as his chest finally loosens. Nothing, nothing but peace, some goddamn peace and quiet, he’s so addicted but how can something that works so well be so bad?

Damn his addictive personality, maybe, if that’s what this is. Or damn his lack of willpower, his lack of reasoning, whatever the source of the blame, he doesn’t care.

He doesn’t  _ care, _ and it’s bliss. 

He cleans up with clinical detachment, humming quietly, rolls his sleeves back down and heads back to his bed to try ringing Hazel again.

***

Will swings by at around eight, and he kisses Nico in greeting, nudging his bedroom door shut and kissing his forehead when they break apart. “Any news?”

“GPS on her phone says she’s still on the campus, Frank thinks her phone isn’t with her and the police are searching anyways.” Nico relays the information as mechanically as he can, not willing to let himself cry anymore, both of his wrists now distantly aching. “Search parties are out in full ‘cause she’s still a minor for another month and a half. My father’s livid, trying to figure out who would dare to touch his precious daughter.”

“And you?” Will asks, caressing his cheek, so gentle is causes a physical, somehow pleasant ache in Nico’s chest.

“Managing,” is all he says, soft. It’s not a lie, it’s technically the truth. It  _ is _ , maybe. It doesn’t really feel like it, though.

“Mmm.” Will brushes another kiss to his forehead and then crouches a little, lifting Nico up bridal style and carrying him (with his very surprised expression) to the bed, setting him down and sitting pretty much  _ around _ him, legs on either side and crossing half under him. It’s like the tree, because Will’s arms wrap warm around his waist, chin on his shoulder.

“Jason says you haven’t left your room all day, even when he tried to bribe you with candy. Says your door’s been locked and you haven’t eaten.” Will’s tone is soft and still so gentle, and Nico does not deserve him.

“Jason’s a tattletale,” he says, and he’s a terrible friend.

Will smiles against the back of his neck and kisses his hair. “All the same, sweetheart, would you come out and eat with us?”

It’s probably some kind of trap, going by his life experience, but it’s Will asking so he’s nodding before he’s even processed the question, shit. He should work on that.

Maybe.

Will’s pleased smile and soft kiss might be worth it. The warmth and stability of his arms might be, the pretty blue of his eyes, the pink and blonde waves of his hair, the freckles on his cheeks might  _ all _ be worth it.

It’s a matter of time to find out, and he stays in WIll’s embrace for as long as he can drag it out before finally letting himself be helped up and led into the living room.

Jason’s smile is wide when he sees them. “Hi! Should I get my takeout menu binder? I’m feeling like tonight isn’t a cooking night.”

He really doesn’t deserve people like this in his life, but all he does is nod, letting Will guide him to curl on the couch.  It’s okay, because Will’s arms wrap around him, warm and safe, and he lets Nico use his shoulder as a pillow. 

He’s got a mild headache, probably from the whole not eating thing, so when Jason brings out the binder he flips to the page with  _ Panda Express _ on it and points to what he wants. Will and Jason talk for a few minutes deciding on their orders, and then Jason’s gone to go get it. 

When it’s just Will and Nico on the couch, Nico lets his eyes close, and WIll’s hands massage his arms from his shoulders all the way down. It’s so soothing he forgets entirely about the new additions to his wrists until Will’s thumbs brush over them and he flinches.

Will’s hands stop where they are, and Nico feels him take a deep breath. He immediately feels sick, like he’s gonna throw up, and he squirms, wanting out of the hold. There’s nothing to fight, though, and he curls into the opposite end of the couch alone, cold from the loss of heat.

Will stands up and leans down next to him, kissing his forehead and heading into Nico’s bathroom. He returns a moment later with the first aid kit, and kisses Nico’s cheek this time.

Surprised, all Nico can do is stare, letting Will take his hand and roll his sleeve back, cleaning and bandaging the cuts and repeating the process on the other wrist.  Neither of them speak, and Will kisses his other cheek as he packs everything up and rolls Nico’s sleeves back down. He returns the kit, and scoops Nico up when he gets back to the couch, settling again in the same position they’d had before with Nico leaning back against him.

Nico lets out a breath, setting his head on Will’s shoulder again and feeling another kiss press to his scalp. “You’re not mad?”

“No, sunshine, I’m not.” Will’s tone is soft and soothing. “I will never be mad at you for that. It makes me sad, though, because it means something hurt you, and that’s not okay. You shouldn’t have to feel like that, is all. Does that make sense?”

“So…” He frowns. “You’re mad at Hazel being missing?”

“The situation is frustrating, yes. I’m upset for you and for her. I want to talk more about this in general though...do you think next time it happens, you could consider calling me first? To see if I can help you calm down and relax instead of having to do this?” Will’s thumb rubs a soothing circle on his hip.

“What if you’re in class? Or asleep? I’m always up late, I like the night better.” Nico wants to see his expression, but he’s too comfortable to move, so he focuses on WIll’s tone instead.

“Text me when I’m in class and I’ll leave it to call you if I can, I’ll explain to my professors that I have phone calls I need to take. They all love me, they won’t care. It doesn’t matter if I’m asleep, I want you to call until I wake up and answer, okay? You’re a Nyctophiliac, and I’m...really not, and that’s okay. I’ll bring a night light and tell you stories until we fall asleep.” Will kisses his temple, this time, tone the same calm and warm one he always uses when they’re alone and tired.

He feels so warm, and those flowers are so full in his chest that he’s fit to burst, daisies and roses spilling from his mouth with every breath. “What’s a Nyctophiliac?” He asks, instead of addressing the three words in the back of his mind.

“It’s someone that loves the dark, and the night. Like you, Mr. Monochrome.” Will tugs on Nico’s black shirt, amused. “I prefer light and colors, as I’m sure you’ve noticed.”

He totally has, Will’s current shirt is a neon tye dye with some high school nerd club logo on it. He laughs, unable to stop it, and turns to kiss him. “You’re such a dork, why do you know all these random terms?”

“I take pride in killing awkward silences with unexpected facts,” Will says simply, like it should have been obvious, and Nico falls a little harder.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...Don't kill me. I'm sorry!  
>  Also, I'm sorry, I'm sort of feeling around with what to do with this fic and I love it, I really do, but I'm not used to such radio silence here and I'm working on plotting things by myself. As always, I'm always super interested in predictions, headcanons, or even requests of cameos or fun things for other characters. Anything at all, guys, I love it all.  
> I'll hopefully get my shit together enough to give an earlier update this time, sorry again for the gaps.  
> ALSO; if you guys are interested, I've started posting my original work and a fanfic for another fandom (cough phandom cough) so feel free to check those out as well!


	7. Inimical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> We meet the squad, shit goes wrong, shit goes more wrong, a secret is revealed and everything sucks, and Nico gets ready to fuck shit up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Inimical  
> (adj)  
> -tending to obstruct or harm  
> -unfriendly; hostile.  
> ***  
> I know I said I wouldn't say much up here, but I need to address a few things, so bear with me.  
> Firstly, I'm really, really glad my portrayal of mental health is coming across as well as it is. I want to show how real it is and how serious it is without it dominating the narrative to the point where nothing else happens, and I want it to be something we feel safe in that we know we're not alone, and we can talk about it. Nico's experiences have a basis in my thoughts and some of the things I have come close to doing, so it's a very personal matter for me that these things are treated with respect and never made into a joke or treated as a plot point or a character trait of 'emo' or 'broken' kids.  
> I'm sincerely touched in that you guys feel safe enough to tell me that you can relate to him, and while it fucking sucks that so many of this know what it's like to feel like this, I want you guys to know that you are NEVER alone and there is ALWAYS someone here to offer a shoulder to cry on, a hug, or a sounding board for you to vent to. My inbox on here and on tumblr is always open, and I'll always be here to offer a safe place to talk. I'm not a professional, so I can't offer counseling and I never will, but it's good to know that there's someone that will never judge for when things go to shit and you have no one to talk to, so you all have that in me.  
> On a lighter note, the lovely [Lunardance](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lunardance/pseuds/lunardance) has created [fanart](http://lunarwings.tumblr.com/post/142617977896/theres-flowers-of-fondness-sprouting-behind-his) and I'm still crying over it, so you guys should totally go check that out and cry with me.  
> On a totally irrelevant note, aha, cough, I really do love Percy, he's my dork sea son and I will protect him at all costs, and this is not a foreshadowing warning of doom or anything.

Hazel is still not home, and it’s Day Three.

Nico’s skipped all of his classes, but his father has called the school, so his professors don’t bother him. Instead, he and Will are gonna stick posters up all over the city, with Frank, Jason, and Jason’s entire squad of friends assisting.

Even though they’re meeting for the first time, Nico’s not totally overwhelmed by the group. He had been, initially, when he’d left his room to a crowded living room full of people and Will had to pick him up and shut the door because he’d had a full-blown anxiety attack, but…now they’d all left, and he’s going to meet them one by one. It’s incredibly warming, being accommodated like this, and he feels like shit for needing it but god, it’s  _ so _ nice to have.

He takes his seat between Jason and Will on the couch, and the first person to enter is a stunningly gorgeous Native girl with warm brown skin and feathery dark hair, one crystal blue and one grass green eye, and the sweetest smile Nico’s seen since meeting Hazel. She shakes Nico’s hand lightly, and sits across from them, and it’s hard to look at anything but her. It’s like her presence fills the room, but she’s not intimidating. It’s a  _ want, _ to be noticed and to bask in her beauty, probably, but it’s not bad.

It feels like a reward, having such a smile directed at him, and he stutters out a greeting with red cheeks.

“I’m Piper McLean,” she greets, and her voice is like lemonade on a hot day. “I’m Jason’s girlfriend, it’s really nice to finally meet you. Jason talks about you and how talented you are, I’d love to one day see some of your work.”

Nico swallows and glances to Jason, who gives him a grin that’s both sheepish and proud. Of course Piper’s his girlfriend, though; Jason’s certainly gorgeous in his own way, and his open and warm personality matches hers. She feels as compassionate as he is, but also like she could totally kick Nico’s ass if she decided to try, so they’s a good mix.

“I like to brag about my friends,” Jason says, amused. “I’m honored to know them, and I like being the one people decide to share their lives with, so of course I’m gonna show off how great they are when I can.”

Nico hits him in the arm, light, and faces Piper again. “Thanks. I-I’ll see if I have anything finished after we…after Hazel’s found.”

“Sounds good. I’m gonna have my sorority help put the posters out, okay? We’ll be covering the East campus. The faculty has already made a school-wide announcement, and we’re all on the lookout for her.” Piper’s not ruffled, either, she’s a steady calm that helps ease Nico’s racing heart a little.

After Piper is a girl with Jason’s electric blue eyes and strong build, and her hair is an inky, dishelved pixie cut with blue streaks. She’s dressed almost entirely in black, with the same ripped skinny jeans and band shirts Nico favors, and  _ Huntress _ is emblazoned in silver on the back of her leather jacket. She shakes Nico’s hand with a firm grip, and sits across from them, and while Piper seemed like she’d be able to beat him up in heels with grace, this girl seems like she could punt him across a football field without even breaking stride.

“Thalia Grace,” Jason introduces. “My older sister. She’s captain of the archery team, and she’s in the biggest sorority on campus.”

Nico nods a little, and he’s too intimidated to bother trying to string a sentence together. 

This doesn’t seem to phase Thalia in the least. “We’ve got West, South, and Central campuses covered. My dad’s got the police combing the streets, too, he pulled a few strings. Your dad and mine are good friends, apparently. I met Hazel once, and I like her. We’re gonna get her back, and safely, too.”

Her voice is so firmly commanding and determined that Nico can’t help but believe her, and he relaxes a little as a result. “Thanks. I appreciate it.”

Percy fucking Jackson walks in the room next, and Nico’s stomach turns so quickly he pitches into Will’s side, because what the  _ fuck. _

He’d recognize those green eyes and stupidly tousled hair anywhere, and it’s very clear Percy hadn’t been expecting him, either, because Percy stumbles back and opens and closes his mouth like a fish. Nico hadn’t made the connection with the Percy Will and Jason had mentioned in passing and  _ Percy Jackson, _ who had been in the passenger seat of the car that had hit Bianca and Zoë all those years ago. 

Percy, who’d been captain of the swimming team at high school and who’d been one of Nico’s first crushes; Percy, who’d been over to his house for dinner once when they were kids and his father had business with Nico’s; Percy, who’d skipped Bianca’s funeral because he’d been in the fucking hospital; Percy, who’s decisions after a party led to him being in the same car as a teenage intoxicated driver.

God, it’s…it’s been years, really. Bianca had died when he was twelve, and she was barely sixteen. He’s eighteen, now, but seeing Percy is like being sucker punched with a battering ram, and he can’t remember how to breathe. He can feel himself squeezing Will’s hand for dear life, and Jason’s gone already, pushing Percy out of the room as Nico breaks down into tears.

He screams a little, he thinks, when Will tries to get him to calm down and not scratch at his wrists. He flails his arms and thrashes in Will’s when Will tries to keep Nico from hitting him, and it’s a mess, he’s a fucking mess. Memory becomes a blur of black hair, brown eyes, and a big green hat, footsteps down mansion halls and laughter in the gardens, the reddish brown stains of her blood on shiny green wrapping paper, the crooked crosses of her Ts and the taste of coffee ice cream, her favorite flavor. He can’t let go, he’ll never let go of her, he’ll die with her name in the back of his mind and a hole in his heart the size of Jupiter. 

It’s too much, probably, Hazel disappearing and the living reminder of Bianca di Angelo’s death all slamming into him in one week, and he breaks completely. He knows he hasn’t ever had a meltdown this bad where anyone could see, where anyone would know, and there’s no fine di Angelo china for him to smash, no gaudy wall hangings in Persephone’s adored purple, no whiskey bottles with droplets clinging to the inside and his father’s fingerprints on the neck. He can’t tear apart the things that hurt the most, he can’t destroy himself in the only ways he knows how even if it helps because the pain he causes could never reach the pain of her loss but it’s something, anything else to focus on.

He doesn’t have his father to scream at, either, and there’s no thundering voice echoing down the halls and chasing him as he runs, and all he has is screaming his voice raw and yanking at Will’s grip, begging and pleading for some kind of relief and some kind of escape because he  _ can’t _ handle feeling like this, he can’t handle the fresh wash of grief, sharp as they day he found out, and he’s never felt so alone in his entire life.

His father has moved to a place where he can handle his grief, but Nico has never done anything but bury it and try to function with what he has left to use. He doesn’t know how to do anything else, and he knows it would kill Bianca to see him like this but there’s nothing he can do to stop it. He’s drowning, choking on the air in his lungs and the blood in his veins.

The room begins to spin, and his stomach turns more and more, and Will must work out where this is going because he carries Nico to the bathroom in time for him to lose his lunch. 

It burns his throat and it feels like he’s coughing fire when he’s done, but he needs the pain because physical pain is something he can focus on, so he throws up until there’s nothing left to give and he can’t breathe without it stinging. 

It’s when he’s gasping in flames and shaking that he begins to feel again, that his rationality smashes through the memories and he can feel the cold of the tile floor beneath his knees and the heat of Will’s arm around his waist the the hand holding back his hair. Will’s voice is a mantra of soothing words, a litany of  _ it’s okay we’ll be okay all you need to do is breathe I got you you’re not alone you’re not alone  _ **_you’re not alone._ **

He gasps in, senses crashing together all at once; the cold the warmth the taste of bile the ringing in his ears the pain in his throat the porcelain under his hand the blur of tearsinhisvision--

Will.

Will lets out a breath just behind him, and he can feel it against his back and his cheek, and Will’s arm tightens around his waist and brings them a little closer. The hand in his hair slides down to his chest, and Will falls silent, merely holding him as close as possible, his face buried in the back of Nico’s neck, both of them sitting on the cold bathroom floor on their knees.

He realizes he’s not the only one catching his breath, but he relaxes anyways, too spent to do anything but let his head loll back against Will’s shoulder and swallow around the ache in his throat. They don’t move, not for several minutes, sitting together and hanging on, breathing together and wading through the aftermath. 

Will does, finally, take a deep breath and lift his head, kissing Nico’s cheek gently and starting to stand, pulling Nico up with him.

Nico’s limbs feel like jello, so Will basically holds him upright and gets him cleaned up, and it’s not until he’s sitting on the counter after rinsing his mouth for the fifth time that he notices the scratches on Will’s arms.

He chokes on the water and it’s a good minute of him coughing until his throat is searing, Will’s hands frantic on his arms and on his back until he’s breathing in raggedly. It hurts too much to talk, he knows it does because he can barely stand to breathe, so he says nothing when Will cups his face and leans their foreheads together, only bringing his hands up to trace the tear tracks on Will’s cheeks and then the pink lines on his arms.

“I’ve never been so scared of anything in my entire life,” Will breathed. “I thought I’d lost you. That you’d…you’d break away and do something I couldn’t fix, or that you’d calm but you wouldn’t be the same, or that you’d never calm again. You were  _ screaming _ , screaming her name and begging me to make it stop but I didn’t know what to do. I’m so  _ helpless _ to give you what you need, and it  _ kills _ me. Which…is why I need to ask you to do something for me.”

He opens his eyes and pulls back, still holding Nico’s face so he has nowhere else to look, and he can do nothing but swallow and nod a little.

“I need you to talk to someone about this. I need you to let me take you to the counselors on campus, and I need you to  _ try _ when you speak to them. You scared the  _ shit _ out of me, and I  _ know _ it was worse for you. They can  _ help _ you, and they give you what I can’t.” He searches Nico’s face, and it feels like he’s trying to memorize every feature. “They can give you a fighting chance, Nico. They can give you a way out of feeling like this. A way to  _ fight _ it.”

He wants to shake his head, to knock Will away and scream again, but…not nearly as much as he thought he would. In fact, it’s a very small part of him, really. His throat burns, he feels like jello inside a punching bag, and he’s tired of his mind being an MMA fighter. He doesn’t want to put that expression on WIll’s face ever again, either, or — and he feels sick, thinking about it — ever,  _ ever _ leave marks like that on Will’s arms again, not like that. 

So he nods.

Barely, slowly, but he nods.

Will exhales and leans their foreheads together again for a moment, and then leans back and kisses Nico’s forehead firmly. “Okay. Okay. I’m gonna bring you to your bed, and you’re gonna stay there while I go make you some tea and talk to Jason and the others. That okay?”

Nico nods again, and loops his arms around Will’s neck, letting Will scoop him up bridal style.

***

They don’t talk when Will comes back, They just cuddle until Nico finishes the tea, and then Will hums him a song until he falls asleep.

It’s when he wakes up again that he has to deal with what happened.

Will leads him into the living room, and they sit at the dining room table this time, and Jason’s group is all there…including Percy.

Nico had okay’d this a little earlier, when WIll had explained that Percy wanted to talk but that Nico didn’t ever have to be alone with him, could have all the support he wanted, and that Jason’s other friends still wanted to meet him.

Nico’s so fucking exhausted that he doesn’t think he can dredge up the energy to panic at the crowd, so he shrugs and lets them all be there. Some are standing, including Jason and Will, but it’s okay. He sits, and Will’s hands rest on his shoulders, thumbs massaging, and it’s okay. Piper is on his left, Thalia on his right, and he’s glad the two girls he’d already met are the closest. 

Introduction to everyone else are short and sweet; Leo is a hispanic boy with a sharp brows and slightly pointed ears, a mess of curls, and a tool belt around his waist that he keeps pulling random items out of to keep his hands busy. Reyna is a tall, intimidating woman (she is nothing like a girl) with long brown hair in a braid over one shoulder and a presence that demands respect, and Nico can’t help but feel like she’s someone he could trust with his life. Annabeth is standing at Percy’s shoulder, and her eyes are a wild, stormy grey that Nico can’t bring himself to meet, so he stares at her perfect blonde curls instead when they’re introduced.

Finally, Percy.

Percy’s dead is ducked just slightly, and he’s refusing to look anywhere but at the table, twiddling his thumbs where his hands rest on the table and looking like the definition of shame and regret.

Nico doesn’t have a single fucking droplet of sympathy anywhere in his body, and he doesn’t try to find any.

“I’m sorry,” Percy breathes, lifting his head but not his eyes. “I…I should have helped, or something. I should have…tried to make things right.”

If Nico had eaten anything, he probably would have felt like throwing up again. As it is, though, he just laughs, sharp and bitter, and Will’s hands slide down his arms and back up, massaging. “Fuck you,” He says, and his tone is nothing but flat apathy, because he doesn’t have anything left to give. “You should have said no when your friend got behind the wheel drunk. You should have come to her  _ fucking _ funeral, you should have come and told her you were  _ sorry, _ at the very  _ least. _ You walked away, and you never came back. She  _ died. _ She took a  _ huge _ part of me with her, and you never even bothered to send flowers to her grave.” 

Percy flinches at every word he puts emphasis on, and Nico’s glad. It’s some kind of relief, being able to vent the frustration and anger he’s held onto for six whole years. He doesn’t stop, either, leaning forward, feeling Will’s hands slip away but not yet caring. “You got to move on with your life after getting into a crash. You and your friends were the only fucking survivors, and you knew who she was, who  _ I _ was, and you walked away from it all like it never even happened.”

Annabeth takes an audible breath, and it makes Nico pause. It’s what she says, though, that feels like a bucket of ice water over his head. “I was in the car, too.”

He can’t breathe, not until Will’s in front of him and blocking his view of both of them, hands cupping his cheeks. Will’s eyes are not sea foam green like Percy’s, they are not the thundercloud grey of Annabeth’s, the electric blue of Jason’s, or the black-brown of Hades. They are a clear, placid blue that Nico has yet to find on anyone else, and it’s that that calms him down. 

Jason’s arguing with Annabeth when he tunes back in, but both of them stop talking with Nico faces Percy again, taking a deep breath and avoiding looking at Annabeth entirely. 

This time, Percy meets his eyes, and it feels like he’s twelve years old in a suit a little too big for him, watching as Hades stares blankly at the coffin and Persephone holds a bouquet of white orchids Bianca had never liked in life.

He sucks in a breath, letting it out slowly, and squares his shoulders. “I don’t forgive you.”

Percy looks like he’s been slapped, but he’s not surprised. “I deserve that.”

“Yeah. I don’t know if I ever will.” He feels his hands shake, and he feels Will’s wrap around them from where Will’s still crouched in front of him.

Percy nods slowly, swallowing.

“And…what makes it worse…” he wants to throw up. “Is that I had a crush on you, when we were younger. So. There’s that.”

There’s a very heavy silence over all of them, and Will squeezes his hands, which is incredibly grounding, since Percy’s expression pretty much just broke in half and Nico’s not really sure how much of that he can handle. 

“I, I’m so sorry,” Percy chokes out, and Nico flinches before he can stop it.

Will stands, kissing Nico’s forehead again. “Perce,” he says, tone calm. “I think you should go, for today.”

Percy nods quickly, and him and Annabeth are out the door in under a minute.

Nico lets out a shuddery breath and rubs his face, leaning his elbows on the table and letting Will rub his back. Someone gives up their chair, because Will sits close and wraps an arm around his waist. He’s grateful for the silence they’re letting him have, and the number of onlookers keep him from doing something harmful, which is the point. 

Sure, now a group of strangers essentially know the worst thing that’s ever happened to him, but…it’s better than dealing alone and ending up bleeding and broken. There’s a kind of support in the air, a silent message of  _ it’s okay _ that’s really helping Nico stay composed. 

Jason’s hand ruffles through his hair, and he lifts his head, dropping his arms to the table. “I want to find the sister I still have.”

From there, they begin to plan.

***

There’s flyers of her face all over the city, everyone from CEOs to the unemployed are being asked if they’ve seen her, and it still takes another nineteen hours before they catch a break.

_ Gaea _ , they say. The head bitch of a crime ring that’s just arrived in town, intent of fucking up everyone and everything. Some henchmen popped up around Hazel’s school the day she disappeared, and Hazel’s not the only missing kid. Any child of an important businessman or wealthy inheritance is at risk, apparently, because three others are already missing.

Ransom notes appear in emails in the same hour as the police are alerted, and it’s not hard to figure out that she’s got intel on the force. 

“Fucking inimical,” Will spits, flicking away the papers, “Who the fuck does she think she is? She’s not even asking for cash! She wants passwords, entire  _ companies,  _ bank accounts, identities…it’s  _ sick. _ ”

Nico doesn’t reply, studying the profiles of the taken kids. 

They’re all young, seventeen and under, pretty kids with nice clothes and nice last names, kids that’ll be missed and kids that’ll fetch a hefty ransom. Tiny kids, though, that probably wouldn’t be hard to subdue and slip away.

The police have no leads on where the kids are, and they’re stuck waiting on another kidnapping, a fucking child being used as bait, and they want to wire someone and let them get nabbed, if they can, but they don’t have anyone willing and the force is too well known for anything undercover.

Will’s still grumbling when he calls his dad, and Nico tunes him out in favor of listening to the ring, chewing on his thumbnail. 

“You read the files?” Nico says by way of greeting when Hades answers. He gets an affirmative grunt. “I wanna do it. Fuck with my age in the system, mark me as younger, I look it. I’m high profile, I’m another one of your kids, and the only one you have left. If she has both me and Hazel she’ll think you’ll do anything. I can find out where they are and we can crack this fucking thing wide open. I want Hazel safe, and I can’t wait for the police to track her down.”

There’s silence, both from the other end of the line and from Will, who’s staring at Nico like Nico just shot a puppy in front of him.

Nico looks away.

“Alright,” His father says, resigned. “I’ll contact Zeus. Your age should be easy enough to change, and someone will be by to get you if this is approved.”

“It will be.” Nico says it like a promise, swallowing hard. “I can do this. I  _ will _ do this.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I swear to god I love Percy, okay, I really do, I'm just an asshole.  
> OKAY.  
> I'm broke as fuck and as a result I'm stressing out way more than usual, plus I have five finals, so I'm trying to function enough to get through my days and write when I can, so I'll try to update as soon as I can, but if there's a week or two gap it's so I can get through the rest of this fucking hell semester.  
> I'll be starting a Patreon with my best friend, where we'll be posting our original work together in novel form, and if you guys like Nico and Will, you'll love our original characters. Micah, one of mine, is very similar to Nico in that he deals with a lot of mental issues but he's still a strong character, and his bf is a super sweet guy that helps him out a lot. Jericho, my friend's character, is a lot like Will, and is actually where I draw both Jason and Will's steady and warm personalities. I really hope you guys will check it out when I get it up, I'll be sure to put a link in the chapter after I get it up and running. As it is, I do have my own work posted here and there's a Patreon set up for that already, so you can go see that if you'd be interested. I also take writing commissions...  
> Sorry to self promote here, but I'm getting pretty desperate and I wanna keep having the ability to write this for you guys, and I need to not be a ball of stress and worry to do it. If you can't afford to help, that's totally fine, but please spread the word if you know anyone that might be interested and CAN help.


	8. Imbroglio

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shit Happens, and Nico is knocked out.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Imbroglio  
> (n) an extremely confusing, embarrassing, or complicated situation.  
> \--  
> I don't know anything abut medical anything, take what you will read with an entire truckload of salt. Also, I'm sorry, I'll explain my terrible reasons for this delay after the chapter.  
> \--  
> In lighter news, something must be said before we begin; first of all, I'm forever and always grateful for the incredible support you guys keep showing me, even though I'm trash and update like once a month because I can't keep my shit together. You're all angels, and I'm so, so grateful to have you guys, so thank you, thank you, thank you.  
> Also, I read the Hidden Oracle, I screamed a lot, and you should totally hit me up on tumblr to scream about it with me, link's in the end notes.

Okay, so it maybe wasn’t his  _ best _ idea in terms of self preservation, but it’s gonna get Hazel back, so it’s worth it.

(Hazel’s gonna fucking kill him).

He’s sitting in the back seat of his father’s limo with a fuming Will beside him, Jules-Albert is driving and delightfully flipping off anyone who so much as blinks at him, and his father is staring both of them down with a cold expression.

All things considered, this is going rather well.

(Hazel’s gonna fucking  _ kill _ him.)

They’re on the way to the mansion so Nico can be wired and then taken to the school, where he’ll wander around calling for Hazel and saying his own name, hopefully obvious enough for Gaea’s henchmen to hear and not obvious enough for it to be a hullabaloo when he gets taken. There’s about eight hundred and sixty-four ways this could go wrong, as Will had so kindly pointed out during their hour-long screaming match argument earlier that day. 

(Hazel’s gonna  _ fucking kill him. _ )

He squirms a little, and Will huffs, taking his hand and massaging in just the way he knows calms Nico down, and there’s got to be something here because Nico  _ knows _ Will’s furious with him, but here he is, comforting Nico like always. It’s so sweet it almost makes his teeth hurt.

For all his faults and failings as a father, Hades doesn’t give a flying fuck that his only son is never gonna carry on the family name, so Nico doesn’t feel scared when he leans into Will’s side and takes steadying breaths. He knows his father is glaring at him because he’s deliberately putting himself in direct danger, not because he has a boyfriend. As troublesome as their relationship is and as much as they’ll war, they do care about each other. 

Additionally, both of them are very aware this isn’t Nico doing something rash to piss Hades off, as he’s done in the past. This is genuine personal risk for Hazel, a sister and a daughter and the sweetest, purest thing either of them have left. It’s worth it, but it fucking  _ hurts, _ and it’s terrifying. 

This is why they don’t speak, because there is both too much and nothing to say, and the silence is thick with both.

***

Will pulls him to a stop before they go inside, and Hades passes them by without a moment’s pause. They’re alone, then, hidden from view by the expanse of gardens and the winding front drive. 

They don’t speak, and Will’s index finger tilts his chin up. The kiss is sweet, soft, all the things Nico can’t say and won’t be able to handle hearing. Will’s hands are warm on the small of his back and the edge of his jaw, radiating the heat into Nico’s bones. 

He knows this isn’t some college fling, because he knows himself and he knows he doesn’t fall for boys on a whim and he’s never so much as wanted to go beyond holding hands with anyone else. Even the thing with Percy was nothing more than hero-worship (no one bullied younger kids with Percy around, and for all the trouble Percy got himself in, he never once hurt anyone intentionally) and the same attraction Nico’s pretty sure everyone even remotely attracted to boys felt for him. 

(Percy was and is still incredibly gorgeous, with tousled black hair, bright green eyes, a deep tan on a surfer’s build and a smirking grin that spells trouble and fun all at once.)

He can feel Will’s breath on his lips, knows they’re sharing air, and nothing has ever been this intimate or this comfortable with anyone he’s ever met. It’s somehow not overwhelming at all, and it feels like home. He knows the taste of Will’s mouth on his more than any other, now, he knows the feel of his hands and smell of his skin, the warmth that bleeds from his every heartbeat into Nico’s chest, and it’s incredible.

He can’t let anything go wrong on this thing, because it’d mean he’d lose these feelings, and…he can’t. He’s gotten so used to the serenity and the comfort, and he  _ refuses _ to let go. It’s taken him almost twenty years to get it, and he’ll be damned if he lets it go.

“You better come back to me,” Will breathes. “I’m not done being mad at you.”

He can’t help but smile. “I’m not done kissing you, so we both have unfinished business.”

Will rolled his eyes. “You  _ would _ go and be sappy when I’m trying to make this light.”

“What? I ruin moments, so I make my own!” Nico says, laughing, and totally not caring when Will muffles it with another kiss.

As much as he wants to stay in his arms and laugh with him forever, he pulls away, feeling Will chase the end of the kiss and hold onto his hands until he can’t anymore. He knows Will isn’t gonna come inside, because he’s already upset and scared, and Nico won’t ask. There’s something about blissful ignorance in that Will doesn’t have to stew in the knowledge of just how dangerous this is going to be.

He’ll ask later, Nico knows, but right now he just isn’t ready. 

And that’s okay.

Nico’s strong enough to handle this on his own for the moment, and so he will.

***

He’s geared up and given a script that he only glances at before getting the gist of it, and that’s fine because it has to seem natural. Then he’s driven to the school campus and dropped off by Jules-Albert, who for once doesn’t rage at any other drivers or mumble French curses as he changes lanes. It’s weirdly silent, and he’s alone in the backseat.

He’s less scared and more…braced. He’s prepared for it, for whatever comes between him and Hazel. He can handle it.

He gets out of the car when it stops, and he doesn’t look back, painting his expression to one of worry, calling Hazel’s name. He knows she won’t answer, and it puts an ache in his chest that makes the expression genuine. 

***

It really doesn’t take long, in retrospect. He was probably out there for about twenty minutes, and then something pricked the side of his neck and he doesn’t remember anything until he wakes up in a cold, dim room with his wrists ziptied behind him and his ankles in front, a gag that tastes like dirt shoved in his mouth.

He’s not alone, though.

There’s half a dozen kids in various states of dirty, worn, and desperate, and among them is a mass of gorgeous honey colored curls that Nico would recognize anywhere.

He scoots forward as quickly as he can and taps her shin with the tip of his boots, and keeps tapping until she stirs, raising her head and blinking at him blearily. He thinks he’s smiling, he probably is, but he doesn’t think she’ll be able to tell with whatever’s been tied around his head and jammed in his mouth.

All the same, she lights up as much as she probably can at the moment, and that’s more than enough for Nico, because it means she’s alive and she’s okay, and he can scoot, scoot, scoot until he’s sat right next to her, pressed to her side.

She buries her head against his shoulder and whines around the gross rag tied around her own mouth, and he makes a noise of agreement, steeling himself before twisting his head this way and that anc chewing, pushing, shoving the gag with his tongue even though it tastes disgusting. It’s worth it when it falls around his neck and he can spit to the side, getting rid of as much of the taste as he can. 

“Hazel, hi, Haze, I’m so sorry, are you okay??” He asks, frantic.

She lifts her head again and nods slow, surprised and making more indecipherable noises. He shifts, glancing to see how her gag is tied and biting his lip, thinking. He could probably pull it loose enough for her to work it off as well, though it’s mean using his teeth again and by her hair.

He explains, and Hazel’s nod is instant, so he gets to work. Between them, they yank hers down and spit the taste out as much as possible, Hazel making disgusted noises. He glances to the other kids when they’re both panting, but he finds that they’re all knocked out, leaning against the walls with their eyes closed, limp.

He swallows, but before he can ask, Hazel’s answering. “We’re drugged. I’ve been holding my water in my mouth and spitting it out after they leave, so don’t drink the water. I’m  _ so _ thirsty, but it’s worth it, ‘cause I’m lucid, you know?”

He cringes anyway. “I’m sorry. You’re being held for ransom. It’s okay, though, ‘cause we’re not gonna be here much longer. Help’s on the way.”

“What? How??” She’s very clearly excited, but her voice is still low, barely audible, and he matches it instinctively.

“We figured out the MO of the kidnapper, and there’s a GPS tracker jammed into the sole of my boot.” He wiggles said boot, scooting his legs to the side so he can see the untampered with rubber of the sole, meaning it hadn’t been removed. “So it’s really a matter of time before the police bust in.”

“Oh, thank god,” she breathed, letting her head fall back to touch the wall. “I don’t know what they’re planning if the ransom isn’t paid, but they were gonna start implementing whatever it was tonight.” There’s a pause, but it isn’t long enough for him to speak. “Wait. Did you  _ get yourself kidnapped?? _ ”

He winced. “Uh, yeah. We needed a way to find you as fast as possible.”

“Are you  _ delirious? _ ”She asked, sharp, glaring at him. “What if it goes wrong? What if you’re stuck here with us, and Dad loses both of us??”

Nico’s chest aches, and he looks away from her, unable to handle her expression. “It won’t, okay? We were really careful.”

“You can’t promise that!” Her whisper is sharp, and he winces again.

“I know, I know. It’ll...it should be fine, Hazel, okay?” He tries for a placating tone, but when he looks back, it’s her that looks away, frowning in silence.

It’s better than her not being there at all, though, so he leans into her and sighs, resigning himself to waiting.

***

He doesn’t sleep, but he dozes.

Hazel had him help pull her gag back up, and he left his own down, simply figuring he’d be able to pass it off being loose. He scoots back to his place, rests his head against the wall, and closes his eyes.

He’s not sure how much time passes, but eventually there is a distant bang and distant shouts. Hazel’s sat upright, her eyes wide, and Nico straightens slowly, watching the door and listening intently. The sunlight that had offered them a shitty glow through a grimy, half-boarded window earlier is gone, and he’s glad he’s always been able to see pretty well in the dark, because he can still make out the shapes of the kids and the outline of the door. It’s too tense, waiting in this imbroglio for some kind of hint, some kind of sign that tells them what they’re up against.

Hazel’s breathing is a little louder than normal, and it’s harsh in the thick quiet that followed the bang and shouts. Soon, though, there’s footsteps that draw closer, and Hazel tips her head and closes her eyes, mimicking the same trance the others seem to be in.

Nico doesn’t bother, watching as the door opens and more crap light from a single bulb in a dirty hall streams in.

The figure that greets them is a man, tall and burly and frowning. His hair is a thick, braided mane of red, and what look like gems and precious stones are woven into the braids, glinting here and there as he moved. His beard is just as full and thick, braided at the ends,, almost covering his mouth completely, were it not for the dark scowl. He folded golden-tanned arms over a barrel chest, glaring them all down. 

It’s a moment or two before his gaze settles on Hazel, and his expression goes hungry, lecherous. He takes a few steps forward, and Nico’s stomach plummets so fast his heart almost stops, and he’s barely able to breath. He needs to get this man’s attention off of her  _ right now. _

Nico rocks a little, side to side, drawing the man’s attention. “Hey, hi. How are you? Don’t answer that, actually, I don’t care. I’m just curious—how long are you planning to keep us here? ‘Cause this is an abysmal room, and I’m used to five-star accommodations.” 

Yeah, okay, he may not have the best filter when he’s pissed and terrified and exhausted, sue him.

He doesn’t get a verbal answer, which is when he realizes this man has no sense of humor. Instead, he is hauled up by his collar, completely off the ground, and pinned to the wall by his throat.

He can see Hazel jerk upright out of the corner of his eye, but he doesn’t give her away, grinning tightly at the man as his air supply is gradually cut off. “Hello, what’s your name?” He asks, strained, because he apparently has a death wish.

“Shut up,” the man growls, all deep voice and evil overtones. “Or I’ll make you.”

“One thing, though,” Nico says, voice weaker and more strained as the hand presses harder on his windpipe. “Why are we here?”

The pressure loosens just enough for him to drag in a ragged, quick breath, and he does so immediately, watching the anger boil on the man’s scraggly face. His voice is no less pleasant this time around, and Nico can now experience the sour smell of his breath as a bonus. “You’re here because I  _ put _ you here.”

He wants to gag, it’s so gross. There’s, like, an inch of space between this guy’s greasy, crooked nose and Nico’s, and he really wants it to stay at least that. “Right. That’s reasonable.”

Ah, shit. His sarcasm is gonna get him killed.

He’s yanked from the wall and slammed back so quickly the whack to his head makes his ears ring a little, and he misses the first few words out of the man’s mouth, dazed. “… do well to remember that, punk.”

“Ha…,” He breathes, weak. “What?”

The man lets go, and he crumples to the floor. He can’t properly break his fall like this, and even when his head hits the ground with only half as much pressure as it could’ve, he blacks out instantly.

***

When he wakes, he’s so glad Hazel’s still in the room that he throws up,

Okay, he’s really happy to see her still there and unharmed, but it’s probably the incredible, pounding pain in his head that has him retching. He can hear her frantically calling his name, barely, but he’s busy bracing himself up on an elbow so he doesn’t choke and die.

It hurts so much his vision swims, and he can see blood on the floor that’s probably his. He can’t have been out long, as it’s fresh, and there’s something warm slipping over the edge of his cheek, meaning he’s still fucking bleeding.

Concussion, definitely, yeah. There’s no fucking way he got out of this without one, and he’s surprised he woke up. It was probably the  _ incredible fucking pain _ between his temples, as it genuinely feels like someone just up and lit his brain on fire. Banging first the back and then the front of his head was probably really bad for it, he notes, blinking and forcing himself to focus on Hazel and he spits the taste of bile out.

“I’m okay,” he tries to say, but it comes out as “M’ay.”

It’s close enough, right?

Hazel scoots as close as she can, and there are tears pouring over her cheeks. “No, no you’re not! Oh my god, you’re bleeding so much, and you hit the floor and you didn’t move and it’s been like ten whole minutes and I thought you  _ died, _ oh my  _ god. _ ”

He’s never gonna stop apologizing to her when they get out of this, he decides. That sounds like it sucks, and he wants to be more genuinely sympathetic for how he made her feel just now, but frankly even stringing together a basic thought like ‘ow, my head really hurts’ is extremely difficult. His brain is a shaken up jello cup, all mushy and gross and jiggly, no longer a recognizable or even remotely pleasant form.

One thought crosses through in relative coherency; he fucking  _ sucks _ at metaphors. He’s leaving the poetry to Will, forever.

Hazel’s legs push to his, and he realizes she’s been calling his name. 

Fuck, okay, he needs to pay attention.

He forces himself to focus again, tuning in. “I’m here,” he says, which translates to “M’ere.”

It is not the same. It is not even remotely what he wants to convey, mere is not the right word for this at all. He tries again with “I’m fine,” and ends up with “M’ne.”

Hazel looks like she’s watching his funeral.

Fuck.

He’s in too much pain to move, almost too much to blink, and he can’t reassure her. He can’t make her see that he’d do this again if he knew it would mean that man didn’t touch her, and the fear of that having happened anyways actually forces a somewhat coherent sentence out.

“Did ‘e touchu?” Nico slurs, and she must make sense of it because she looks at once more angry, terrified, and miserable all at once.

“N-no,” She says, her voice breaking. “No, he didn’t. He took some other girl, the one he always takes. Y-You did that f-for me?”

“Mm,” He says, and he hopes his tone is enough of an affirmative.

There’s more commotion outside, and he’d turn his head to the door if he didn’t genuinely believe doing anything more than breathing, blinking, and focusing on Hazel wouldn’t cause him to pass out all over again.

Hazel’s head whips toward it, though, and he settles for watching the fear on her expression grow and grow, his stomach filling with dread.

The door bangs open, and the sound has him retching all over again with the fresh wave of intense pain. 

He loses track of events for the next several minutes, knowing nothing but pain and confusion.

Those minutes bleed on, and he catches snatches of things; Hazel’s voice, scared and too-loud. Hands covered in blue rubber gloves. Red and blue flashing lights. Movement, as he’s carried. The feel of the flat side of a blade pass between his wrists, and their subsequent release from the tight plastic binding a moment later. The feel of something cushioned beneath him. The silver interior of a small metal room. Sounds, so many noises that he can’t make sense of a single one.

His sight is nothing but blurred, slow-motion nonsense, his hearing is akin to something underwater, and the pain is so constant that he forgets what it’s like to be without it.

***

He wakes again in a quiet place with both of his hands squeezed tightly in more hands that don’t belong to him. 

The pain is not so intense, now, just a dull and constant throb that keeps him from opening his eyes or changing his breathing for a while, instead just laying on whatever nice, comfortable thing he is laying on, getting reacquainted with the feel of his body and the mess of his thoughts.

Sometime later, he opens his eyes, and he’s incredibly relieved to find the room is dimly lit by grey daylight seeping through transparent curtains. The room is white, all white, and he recognizes it as a hospital room before he recognizes the heart monitor clamped over one of his fingers and the soft beeping of the machine. An IV is on that same arm, and he quickly finds something else to think about.

There are four chairs in the room.

By the door, Hades and Persephone sit together, Persephone dozing with her head on hades’ shoulder, Hades’ head resting on hers. It’s the first time in a long time that the sight of her doesn’t make him bitter, but he doesn’t focus on it at all, instead taking note of the other two chairs, one on either side of the bed.

It’s Hazel on his left, and Will on his right, and he’s so immensely happy to see both of them that his chest aches. Hazel’s safe, and home, and okay, and Will is like the home he hasn’t had in a very long time. It feels like two huge pieces of his heart have connected, and they rest on either side of him.

Hazel’s also asleep, her cheek pillowed on her arm, his hand held tightly in one of hers, like even in her sleep she’s afraid to let go. It makes him ache for a different reason, and he swallows, vowing to make up for the ordeal as much as he can in the next forever.

Will’s awake, and it looks like he’d been awake for a long time. There’s shadows under his eyes, and his expression is exhausted as he reads a textbook — an actual fucking textbook, which Nico’s 3000% giving him shit for when he feels like it’s safe enough to do so, probably in like ten years — that he has open on the edge of the bed, his chin propped on his hand and the other hand holding onto Nico’s so securely Fort Knox would be jealous.

He twitches his fingers, finally, watching as Will’s expression lights up, those gorgeous blue eyes meeting his. The textbook is closed and off the bed in seconds, and Will’s lips press feather-light to his nose, over his cheeks. “Oh, god, you’re  _ awake, _ hi, oh my god,” he breathes, his voice cracking, and Nico almost cringes with guilt, even as the kisses warm him to the core.

It seems that he’d found Hazel, but made the situation much worse anyways, and that…sucks. He’s never felt like this much of a fuck up before.

It’s both Will’s voice and Nico’s tears that wake first Hazel, and then their parents. 

He’s babbling apologies in weak, slow words, unable to stop as he cries, and even as Hazel squeezes his hand so hard he loses circulation, he still feels like the worst person on earth.

It takes the nurses and a very calm and friendly doctor coming in and removing everyone from the room for him to gain some sort of control again, and even so he sniffles his way through all their questions on his ability to pay attention and solve basic math and catch a little stress ball that’s tossed to him gently. 

He has a concussion, like he’d predicted, but it’s not deadly. Just painful, since he’d had two very hard knocks so close together, and he’s strictly instructed to try and keep calm and keep away from anything even remotely strenuous, for both his body and his mind. He’d apparently slept through the danger zone, and as he’d actually woken up, there weren’t any worries for a coma. 

Fluids have been flowing through the IV, as he hadn’t been awake to receive them normally on his arrival and they’d wanted him to have as much strength and stability as possible in case he  _ did _ have a chance of actual permanent damage. Thankfully, it’s nothing but a headache now, and his brain was neither bruised nor bleeding from the impact. His head is in recovery mode now, the doctor explains. He needs to be careful and make sure he does nothing to worsen his condition, but that he’s not at risk for anything even near fatal.

He’s incredibly relieved, and he’s assured that he’s not even on any pain medication, the headache he has is all that’s left. The medication he can take for that is simply over the counter Tylenol, and after — ugh — after the needle is removed from his arm, he gets a little paper cup of water and two capsules to swallow down.

When he promises to take it easy, he’s allowed to pick who can come back in, and he settles for Will and Hazel only, not having the strength to take on the complicated mental gymnastics that is his relationship with his father. The doctor merely smiles and assures that the diagnoses will be updated to Hades and persephone, and that Nico can always have them come back later, as he’s being kept for observation until the next morning just to make extra sure he’s okay.

Neither Will or Hazel ask much, and he’s eternally grateful. They just sit with him, talking softly and holding his hands, and after a while it’s decided that Will is to read them passages from the textbook, which turns out to be from a humanities class he’s taking for an elective and filled with myths that make wonderful bedtime stories when all the wack bits like beheading, dismembering, incest, cannibalism, and other such fun conversation topics are ignored.

He falls asleep to the story of Isis and Osiris, shortly after the Nile gains its fertility from a fish eating Osiris’s severed dick. It’s such an odd and amusing thought that he drifts off grinning, and Will’s soothing voice washes over him in the sweetest lullaby.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, I'm really, really sorry guys.  
> As you know, I'm not exactly at the peak of my mental health this year, so things have been rough. I've had a few meltdowns, stress from school has worn me down and I've cried more times than I'd like to admit. I made a breakthrough with my friends, though, so that's helping a bit, and this is my last semester of college before I go to a university for a degree in shit I actually, genuinely wanna do, instead of dragging myself through cores like earth science and speech.  
> Money has been the root of my stress this past month, and it's been hell. I'm offering both writing commissions and writing workshops, where I set aside an hour or more to sit down in a chat room or google doc and help you build ocs, build worlds, learn to write smoother, learn to write as a stream of consciousness and work from that, or any other thing you'd like to learn about from me. I'm open to pretty much any kind of lesson that isn't smutty or questionable morally, so if you're interested in either a workshop or purchasing your very own fic of these two, any prompt, your ocs, my ocs, or some other fandom for $1 every hundred words, by all means come and hmu here or on [tumblr.](http://distantdreamingg.tumblr.com)  
> Long story short, I'm super sorry for the delay, I tacked on an extra thousand words to try and make up for it and I'm gonna genuinely try to make the next gap shorter.  
> \--  
> Brownie points and a possible shoutout to anyone that can tell me who the man is, since he's actually from the books, just a people instead of a monster :)


	9. Acronical

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Acronical  
> (adj) - of the rising or setting sun.  
> \--  
> AIIGHT. Shoutout to lunardance and a nonny for guessing Alcyoneus as the villain last chapter! He's the giant made to battle Hades/Pluto, so nice spotting!  
> I'm going to address a few things in the end notes, so hit those up if you interested in me gushing and also an introduction of me to all you new readers I keep getting.

He gets out of the hospital late the next day, and Jason’s there to pick both him and Will up and drive them back to the apartment. Nico’s fine, according to the hospital, but he needs to be careful and also eat a little more, he’s underweight. He just nods along and cites college stress for the diet, and they buy it because he knows how to sound sincere even when he’s full of shit.

Will holds his hand in the backseat for the drive, and it’s quiet. Nico’s still tired, so his head rests on Will’s shoulder, and the air feels thick with a hidden layer of tension. It’s like fog in the air, clogging his senses and dulling his relief at getting Hazel back. She’s home, yes, and he’s fine, but it doesn’t feel like it’s over. It was too easy.

All the same, it seems to be over, and Will’s arm is around his shoulders, thumb drawing soothing circles onto his bicep, and the setting sun fills the car with sweet rays of warmth. Despite the pressure, it’s a gorgeous sight, the sky streaked with pinks and oranges and purples, the car engine a soft hum beneath the edge of Nico’s consciousness, Will’s breathing steady above it. There’s no music playing, but that’s okay, because this is an acronical peace and he’ll hold onto it for as long as possible before the undercurrent of tension snaps, and the inevitable disaster fight breaks out.

He’s still thinking this when Jason’s pulling through an intersection and he’s forced to do nothing but watch as a black, tank-like car speeds through the red light and right towards them. It’s slow motion, almost, as he watches the masked driver near, and his eyes widen, but he can’t even make a sound before there’s a  _ crash _ of metal against metal, and the side of the car buckles into toward him at an alarming speed.

Pain flares all along his side like fire, Jason and Will are yelling, and his vision swims before finally going black.

***

When he comes to yet again, he is tied to a wooden chair, and whatever is wrapped around his chest is a shade too tight and it hurts to breathe. His head throbs, and the his left cheek feels tight in the way skin does when there’s dried blood on it. 

He aches all over, when he takes stock. His left side is in the worst pain, as he’d been in the driver’s side. He’s not dead, and nothing feels broken, so he has definite hope for Will and prayers for Jason. After the cataloging and acknowledging of the pain, he feels something he hasn’t felt in a very long time;  _ rage. _

It boils under his skin, lava filling his veins, and the pain fades as he lets it wash over him. When was younger, his father had signed both him and Bianca up for self defense classes, and they’d both been very good. So good, in fact, that both of them went on to pick up more athletic activities. Bianca had chosen archery, and Nico had chosen fencing and mixed martial arts. He hadn’t trained in a while, but he’d done it so much since childhood that he doubts he’d ever really forgot the muscle memory that was judo flipping someone or dodging a fencing sword effortlessly.

Now, tied to a chair and unaware of anything but his pain, his anger, and the stale smell of dust in the air, he had nothing better to do than nurture the flame of fury and let it grow. 

Will and Jason didn’t deserve to be dragged into whatever fucking mess this was, and he had a good feeling it had to do with not only his escape and rescue of the other kids, but his big fucking mouth.

He knew it’d fuck him over someday, but he wasn’t ready for that day to be  _ today, _ nor for it to take someone else down with him. That just wasn’t  _ fair, _ after all. It was  _ his _ mistake,  _ his _ bitter attitude, and  _ he _ should be the only one paying for it. Not sweet, warm Will, or steady, reassuring Jason. 

Golden boys with golden hearts and golden futures.

Nico will take on the entirety of hell if it means they get to reach those futures after this.

***

Time drags on by, and the pain fades to an annoyingly present ache now that he’s used to it.

Finally, he hears the sound of a door opening, and a tall, green-eyed and black-haired woman strides into his field of vision, which is small as there’s only one shitty little lightbulb above his head in some cliché of a bad action/suspense film. He’s even more irritated when the woman is in front of him, her lips blood red and glossy, her makeup dramatic and flawless, her hair perfect, her dress a gorgeous earthy brown, etcetera. 

“Is this a fucking Bond film?” He asks, snide and too tired and pissed to care. “Because if that’s so, Bond always escapes, and this position makes me Bond, so can we skip the fight scene and the dramatic villain monologue bit?”

She slaps him hard across the face.

He probably should’ve seen something like that coming, but still, his jaw aches and he has to spit blood onto the floor, feeling where his teeth had cut into the inside of his cheek. “Shit,” he mumbled, because apparently he has no self-preservation. “Rude.”

“You’re just another trust fund brat, aren’t you?” The woman snaps, her voice both sleepy and acidic at the same time, and he’s not sure how that works but it  _ does, _ and it’s creepy.

“Uh,” He says, distracted by the coppery taste in his mouth. “Yes? I’m a di Angelo.”

He’s never really used his name before, mostly because no one keeps track of who owns funeral home chains, but his family is known enough in this city for being filthy rich and morbid as hell. If she’s from around the area, she’ll have heard of him and his father at the very least, if not Persephone’s own fame in her award-winning gardens and whatever other botanical shit she’s into (Nico has literally never cared).

“di Angelo?” Her tone is disgusted. 

He shrugs. “Yes. I’m a di Angelo, we’ve been over this.”

Her hand twitches again, but he doesn’t flinch, instead focusing his energy into glaring the bitch down. He’s not even remotely afraid — he’s been hit much harder before, and showing fear is giving these kind of people what they want anyway.

“You’re no angel,” she spits, and he has to fight laughter. He feels his mouth twitch anyway, and her glare somehow gets less sleepy and more murderous. Great, he’s so excited to see where this goes.

“You’re nothing but a spoiled little  _ brat _ with no understanding of the real world. You go around ruining the earth, spoiling it with all your disgusting waste! You’re poisoning the goddess, and you need to  _ pay _ for it!” She took a step forward as she spoke, radiating passion.

Nico blinked. 

“Um,” he said eloquently. “What?”

“You and your kind are killing our Mother Earth!” She snapped, her long hair swaying with the force of her temper.

Nico really wasn’t expecting this to boil down to a ticked-off pagan environmentalist, but okay, sure. Why not, right?

“So you’re joking, right?” He shifted in his chair ties. “Like, okay. I’ll save the trees. Can I go now?”

“ _ You, _ ” She growled. “Must  _ pay _ .”

“I’ll write you a check from my handy-dandy trust fund.” Nico stated dryly. “I don’t even care what the number on it is. I want to go home with my friends and pretend I never met you.”

“Never!” She grabbed his collar, yanking his chair up on two legs, her earthy, floral perfume almost making him dizzy with the strength. “You  _ disgust _ me, and people like you should not be allowed to continue with your polluting, vile ways!”

Well, shit.

“Tell you what,” he said, trying to shimmy around and loosen the ropes as subtly as possible. “I’ll go volunteer every weekend to plant trees. I’ll reduce my carbon footprint. I’ll recycle more. I’ll have my dad switch to biodegradable coffins that grow trees. Just  _ let me go, _ lady!”

“Never!” She screeched, way too close.

“What the fuck!” He yelled right back, exasperated and actually starting to get a little nervous. “Why are you such a  _ bitch _ ?”

She shoved him back, and by miracle, the chair didn’t tip back and slam his head  _ again _ into concrete. “You ruined my last mission, how dare you try to talk your way out of this one!”

Wait.

Really?

“ _ You’re _ Gaea?” He felt his eyes widen. “And you’re not...this is about the  _ planet? _ Holy shit, you expect to win people over to your cause by  _ kidnapping their children _ and  _ holding them for ransom? _ Are you actually that unstable? Shit!”

“Shut up!” She roared, her hand snapping out towards him again, and landing solidly on his cheek.

Stars exploded over his vision, and he realized this kind of trauma so soon after his concussion was  _ not _ good, so he let his head loll and his eyes slip closed, faking unconsciousness.

She bought it, because he listened to her stalk out a few moments later.

He blinked his eyes open and sighed, staring at the ground and wondering how he was gonna get out of this one.

***

He must have fallen asleep eventually, because he’s waking up again to something reeking of chemicals shoved against his mouth and over his nose.

He gasped instinctively in shock, regretted it instantly, and began, yanking his head side to side to try and get away from the cloth. A hand twisted painfully into the hair on the back of his head, holding him in place, and though he held his breath for as long as possible, he didn’t last more than a few minutes.

***

He woke up  _ again _ when he was drenched in icy water from head to toe, and he curled forward as much as he could, coughing up the water that he’d inhaled with another fucking gasp of shock, shivering. By the time he blinked his eyes clear and flicked his head to get his curls out of his eyes, he’d figured out he was in a different chair and ziptied to it, ankles tied to each chair leg. 

He lifted his head, realizing he was alone again, the bucket that had held the water rigged to hang above his head. It was the same dark room and single spotlight deal, but there was another new additions.

Sitting in front of the chair a few feet away was a tripod, the camera facing him, a single red light announcing that he was being recorded.

“What the fuck,” he mumbled, squinting at it. “What are you even doing with your life that leads you to tying people to chairs? What kind of life decision did you fuck up that could possibly result in this?”

The camera didn’t respond, not that he’d expected it to. He glanced around again, trying to find a clue to where he’d been taken, anything that he could recognize.

It was hard, in the gloom, but his eyes adjusted slowly. The bulb above him was even shittier than the last, dimmer and almost flickering, the shifts too quick for him to figure out if they were real or just his slowly growing paranoia.

When he got out of this, he was going to have some serious issues being left alone, probably. He’s definitely gonna have nightmares, an unfortunate reality of a shitty past and previous traumas.

Wait.

What is that?

He squinted again, but it still took him a few moments to work out the shape above the camera and a little bit behind was a window. A dirty window, but not dirty enough that it blocked out the moonlight behind it. It was weak, but it was something, and after a few more minutes of studying his surroundings, he figured it out.

There was an old meat manufacturing plant on the edges of the city that had been closed down and marked for destruction a few years ago, but the city was strapped on funding and never went through with it. The tape around it was the only thing kept up, yellow DO NOT CROSS and broken, rusted chainlink fencing keeping most of the neighborhood’s delinquent children away and the horror stories from the way the plant had been run keeping away the rest.

Okay, good. Location was good.

“Hey, so…” He glanced to the camera. “If this is a live feed, and it probably is…” He faced it head on, making sure to pronounce it quickly and clearly. “I’m at the old meat plant behind the tracks on Southside.”

The light flicked off on the camera the second the last syllable left his mouth, and he grinned. She wasn’t quick enough, and she just proved it was a live feed by turning off the camera when he gave her away.

Now, all he had left to do was wait and see what this new twist resulted in.

***

It resulted in him being yanked from the chair by two burly men and dragged literally kicking and screaming into the dark of the night, toward another black tank car (what fucking model was this thing, seriously). He fought every inch of the way, wild, limbs flailing. 

When they got outside, a hand covered his mouth, and he bit it as hard as he could. 

Pain exploded in his stomach, the air shooting out from his lungs, and he was left gasping and wheezing, dazed enough the he went limp.

He was dragged over two feet of sharp gravel that dug into his jeans and scraped his exposed knees before the first of the sirens rose in the distance. The hands on his arms tightened painfully, and he was hauled up into the air and bodily thrown into the open trunk of the car.

If he wasn’t dazed before, he was now, disoriented and confused as the trunk’s lid slammed down and cut off the view of the stars above them.

More slamming, muffled, and then movement. He blinked, trying to make sense of the dark and the small space he was curled in, but the bruises he could feel forming and the blood on his knees made it hard to focus. He slid around, too, slamming into the small walls of his confinement, and he gave up trying to anything more than stay awake pretty quickly.

Dizziness threatened to pull him under, and if he could see anything, it’d probably be swimming.

***

It was a sudden stop that had him slam into the back of the trunk, startling him from a half-conscious daze into something close to clarity. It felt like he’d been sliding around for hours, but it had probably only been a few minutes. He wasn’t sure, it was hard to think about anything. His head felt like a shaken up Coca Cola left in the sun; gross, flat, and syrupy. 

He could hear sirens, loud even through the muffling of the trunk, and loud men yelling loudly. 

Ugh. The world felt like a slow-mo, out of focus college film.

He was so dizzy.

What the hell was happening?

***

Something slammed on top of the trunk, and he gasped, starting again. He kept slipping into this super disorienting daze, and he couldn’t keep track of what was happening or when time passed. Had it been a few seconds, or an hour? How long had he been in this trunk?

He shifted, finding the scrapes on his knees and gritting his teeth, pressing in with his nails until fresh pain washed over him, bringing with it a wave of clarity.

He let out a shuddering breath, because with that clarity came the realization of the number of fucking bruises he was gonna have in the morning. His entire body ached, and he still couldn’t fucking see anything, so there wasn’t much to distract himself with. He could hear, though, and after listening for a few moments, he realized he was hearing Miranda rights and handcuffs.

He rolled half onto his back and began pounding at the roof of the trunk, fast and loud. The small space felt like it was starting to close in on him, now that he was able to process it. He couldn’t roll over completely, really, just twist his shoulders, as his legs were only an inch or two from the top of the trunk. There was only half a foot of space around him, and it was pitch black and suffocating, the air hot and thick. He kept pounding, louder and harder as the seconds ticked by, until there was a scrape of metal against metal and the trunk shot open.

Cool night air rushed in, bringing with it deafening sirens and blinding flashlights. It hurt to see, hurt to hear, but he welcomed it anyway, because it meant freedom.

Everything past that was a bit of a blur, cops speaking above him and trying for a reply he couldn’t focus enough to give anymore. Paramedics were next, lifting him out of the trunk and onto a stretcher, and all he could do was lay there, watching the blur of the redblueredblueredblue lights against the shiny black and white cars, reflecting in the tinted windows. 

The inside of the ambulance was bright, but the light shined in his eyes was brighter. Voices blurred above him, and then faces, and then everything. He sank into unconsciousness like it was an old friend, too tired to fight it anymore.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, hi!! I'm sorry for this chapter, aha. I couldn't leave Gaea as a passing mention, not with the impact she had on him in HOO.  
> Onwards!  
> I just wanna say a huge THANK YOU for all the wonderful comments I've been getting here and on my previous fic, TKAA, in relation to my portrayal of Nico's mental illnesses. I fully believe in the power of representation, and I want to show that even if you feel like you're drowning, you can still be okay. There's still someone willing to help you up, always. We're all over the place, and I'm always here for a shoulder to lean on, validating your feelings and sending cat gifs your way. I'm both moved by the touching sentiments and upset that so many of you, like me, can relate to how Nico feels. It fucking _sucks_ that we live in a world where so many of us know the feeling of the world around us turning grey.  
>  I hope this fic helps put a little dot of color in that for you, or my oneshots do, or my art. The only thing I want in this world is to make it a little less difficult for you guys, so if I've achieved that even slightly, I'm so, so happy.   
> To move onto a lighter topic, I feel like it's time to introduce myself to you guys after all this fic I've posted.  
> Hi! I'm Raina! I'm twenty, I live in Florida, I dye my hair a different wild color (or colors) about every two and a half weeks, and I write my chapters at ridiculous times in the morning and post them the second I hit 3k words and end the scene (this chapter is the only exception, 46 words shy). I'm terrible at organizing my time, and therefore updates are really sporadic. I grew up in a kinda fucked up environment, and so I can relate to Nico very well in some places, but I've never been as bad as he is. Writing is cathartic for me, which is why I'll never stop doing it. I get to vent through him, and it keeps me from anything crappy.   
> I love every one of you guys, I'm so happy you guys read and comment and leave me kudos, and I respond to _every_ comment I get before uploading the new chapter, so if you commented anonymously and didn't get an email, know I've replied to you! I always will, too, and usually in detail when you guys decide to leave me my favorite kind of reviews, where you start a conversation with me by telling me what you liked and what you guess and things like that. Feel free to ask me anything else you'd like to know for next chapter!


	10. Acataphasia

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Yes, yes, here's what happened to the golden boys.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Acataphasia  
> (n) - A loss of the ability to express oneself using organized syntax  
> \--  
> #PrayForOrlando  
> I live in Orlando, and I'm heartbroken. My heart goes out to the families and friends and anyone else affected.

When he wakes, it’s to glaring blue eyes and a frown on pretty pink lips. A heated blush over tanned, freckled cheeks.

Will.

He’s not glaring at Nico, but rather at someone on Nico’s other side. He’d turn and look, but he’s busy taking in the line of Will’s jaw, the way his hair is twenty different shades of honey blonde, curling loosely at the ends, looser than Nico’s used to because Will’s been procrastinating on a hair cut for like a month, or something. The pink is faded, a barely-there tint, and Nico wonders if he plans on redyeing it or if it had been a one-off thing.

There’s a short laugh, and Nico flicks his eyes over momentarily to find out if he needs to help Will, but it’s just Jason. He’s bruised, it’s obvious on his face, but he’s standing fine, arms crossed over his chest. His expression is amused and warm, so he must have been teasing.

Nico knows Will’s got an easy blush when he’s embarrassed, it’s just that it’s hard to embarrass him. Nico’s only done it once before, finding a folder of all Will’s straight A test grades and teasing him for being such a genius. It had been adorable, watching him try to modestly deny it, but Nico’s not fooled. He may be easy going, but that doesn’t mean he’s anything but brilliant. It’s probably why he’s so damn good with people.

Will makes a frustrated noise, and it’s clear he doesn’t know what to say, so Nico takes pity on him and reaches out, pushing his fingers into the gaps between Will’s were his hand rests on the edge of his bed.

Will chokes a little, and both of their heads snap to him, and then Will’s kissing him hard on the mouth and he’s smiling into it helplessly, squeezing his hand. When they break apart, Jason ruffles his hair, and Nico gives him a small grin. He doesn’t feel like speaking, so he doesn’t, letting WIll steal his attentions again with kisses on his cheek, forehead, the back of his hand. 

He looks like he never wants to let go, and Nico has exactly zero complaints, so they stay linked by the hands as Jason leaves to go let the rest of Nico’s family (Jason’s basically part of it at this point, by choice over blood, which is the best kind).

When they’re alone, Will kisses him again, soft and sweet, and settled in the chair by the bedside, his hands wrapped tight around Nico’s. “I was so  _ worried _ about you, fuck. I woke up in an ambulance with Jason bleeding all over the place and you nowhere in sight. It was the scariest thing that’s ever happened to me. Are you okay? Does anything hurt? They said you got another concussion and a million bruises, scraped knees, and very nearly some internal bleeding, I think?” He lists it off unafraid, and Nico’s glad, as he hates sugarcoating.

“It aches,” he says finally, after taking a moment to analyze. But distantly, so I’m probably on painkillers. I got slammed around a lot and slapped really hard twice, punched in the stomach, I dunno.” He almost shrugs, but thinks better of it when he realizes he aches  _ literally _ almost everywhere and it would hurt more than he needs for such an unimportant emotion.

Will sighs, massaging his hand gently. “I’m so sorry. I wish I could have been there with you.”

“I don’t,” Nico replies simply. “‘Cause then I’d have to go kill everyone on principle.”

Will rolls his eyes, affectionate, a smile playing at the edges of his mouth. “My knight in shining armor,” he says, amused. “Riding in to save me on his own two feet, since he can’t drive.”

“Fuck off,” he shoots back, but there’s no venom. “You’re such an ass. I can’t believe you’d ruin my obnoxiously sweet sentiment with your bullshit.”

Will laughs, loud and warm, and it fills the room and draws a smile onto Nico’s lips as well. He can’t help but smile when Will laughs, not ever, because it’s such a wonderful sound. It’s likely it could be listed medically as a way to lift moods, it’s that strong.

“I missed you,” Will says, soft and warm, but he ends it with “You fucking dork,” so Nico’s not sure if it really counts as romantic.

He adores it anyways, and drags Will in for another kiss by first his hand and then his collar.

***

They’re somehow not interrupted even though they kiss for like two minutes straight and Jason cannot have gone that far or talked that long, but it’s a blessing he will take without question.

When Will’s seated again, both of them much more relaxed, Hades and Hazel come in.

Hazel bursts into tears the second she lays eyes on him, and he winces, and winces again when she stops herself from hugging him and settles on squeezing his other hand tightly.

He frowns and pulls her down, releasing Will to wrap both his arms around her anyway. It hurts, he can feel the bruises mottling his skin without looking, knows there’s more under the fashionable hospital gown he has on, but he doesn’t care. She’s worth it, and she always will be, so he kisses her cheek and holds onto her until she pulls back, wiping her eyes with a watery smile.

He completely ignores his father in lieu of stroking his thumb over the back of Hazel’s hand. “Hey, I’m alright. I’ll heal. It’s okay.”

“I-I’m just scared,” she said shakily. “All the time, and you went missing and, a-and I thought you’d be put where I was.”

He manages to not wince again, even though that’s basically what happened. He sincerely hopes no one is an asshole and tells her the truth, because he opens his mouth and lies his fucking ass off for her. “Nah. I got in a fight with the guys, s’why I’m bruised. I met the bitch, but all she did was talk about the environment. Nothing bad.”

Hazel starts to cry again, but he can tell it’s with relief this time, so he squeezes her hand tight until she returns it, and they’re okay.

Finally, Hades clears his throat. “Son.”

“Father.” He can’t help but have it come out sarcastically. He almost died twice and Hades genuinely sounds like he’s scolding, what the fuck.

“I…” he seems to be struggling. Nico lets him suffer, watching curiously. 

“I am glad you’re okay.” 

It’s gruff, it sounds like a greeting card read in monotone, but it’s love, and Nico knows it.

He grins helplessly, rolling his eyes. “Yeah, me too, dad.” 

He doesn’t remember the last time he’d used anything other than father to Hades’ face, and surprise is visible on the normally regal exterior Hades always has, and it melts to a genuine smile, just for a moment. And then he leaves them with a nod, and Nico hums, pleased.

“Well. I can see you’re not the only emotionally stunted one in your family.” It’s Jason, shutting the door behind himself and sounding amused. “I swear, your dad has, like, one facial expression. He’s like a meme, like one of those shirts with alien faces and different expressions written under the same face; happy, sad, scared, whatever. It’s  _ weird. _ ”

Will’s mouth is open a little in surprise, probably at how bluntly rude Jason’s being, but Nico only laughs until it hurts to even breathe, and wheezes into silence while a flush burns in his cheeks. “God, I  _ know. _ It’s terrifying, I have to figure out everything by the tone of his voice, and he only has two settings for that. Rage, and boredom.”

Hazel puts a hand over her mouth to muffle a snort, and Nico’s glad he could make her smile. Jason’s cracking up, and Will slowly relaxes into a grin. It’s nice, having them all here. It feels like an actual family around him, and it’s such a foreign but pleasant feeling.

He’d wish for it to never end, but that seems to be a jynx in his case, so instead he just decides to enjoy it.

***

He gets released the next day, but he has a small meltdown when they near the car to take them home. Jason’s not driving — he says he can’t, probably won’t be able to for a while, he threw up when he first got behind the wheel to see if he was affected — but he still can’t do it.

Will picks him bridal-style and carries him away from the parking lot, to a little garden the hospital has outside, a bench under a tree, and sets him down in the shade. Will’s hands card through his hair, and it’s so soothing. He blinks a few times, feel his heart slow, his breathing even out, his hands stop shaking as he holds onto his knees.

Will’s kneeling in front of him, holding his hands now, leaning up to kiss his forehead. “You’re okay. I’ve got you. We’ll figure out another way to get back, alright? It’s okay.”

Nico nods a little, sliding forward and down until he can hug Will, bury his face in his neck and inhale that warm citrus honey that feels like home. Will’s arms are secure and warm, and as usual, he feels the anxiety and fear melt off of him. It’s hard to feel like anything is wrong when everything about this is so right. 

Jason joins them, sitting quietly on the bench, and Will shifts until Nico’s legs are on either side and he can stand, picking Nico up and sitting on the bench with Nico in his lap. It’s intimate, but it’s so safe, and Nico can’t be bothered to think about someone finding them or something. He doesn’t care anymore.

Hazel’s hand touches his back, light and soft, and he doesn’t have to look to know it’s her. He’d know her hands anywhere, probably, soft as anything and small, warm. It’s an extra layer of comfort, having her there, and when she sits on Will’s other side, Nico reaches over and takes one of her hands, holding on, his cheek on Will’s shoulder so he can face her.

“What about taking the bus?” Hazel offers, soft. “It’s totally different from a car.”

Will’s hands run up and down his back, gentle circles, and he wants to melt it’s so nice. “Um…we could try?”

“I think there’s a stop across the street,” Jason notes. “Want me to go check?”

“Please?” Will’s reply is soft, and Jason must nod or something, because he stands and walks away.

Nico squeezes Hazel’s hand. “”Are  _ you _ okay?”

She gave him another watery grin, blinking a few times until the threat of tears faded. “I’m managing. Dad signed me up for therapy, and the lady I’m meeting with is really nice. I like talking to her.”

Nico feels something inside of him relax, relief coursing through his system. “Oh, good. That’s  _ so _ good.” 

Hazel nodded. “She’s also gonna help me with…what I remember about Mom.”

Nico grinned, squeezing again. “Maybe it’ll help.” 

“It should,” she nodded, smiling back. “I’m okay. I’ll be fine soon.”

The weight of his worry for her is much lighter, and he takes a deep breath, letting it out slowly, thankful. 

Jason returns, affirming the stop’s location, and he slides off Will’s lap reluctantly.

***

The bus is different.

He’s very nervous, but Will holds one hand and Hazel holds the other, and Jason pays for them all as they find a seat. 

There’s a variety of people on the bus, all shapes and sizes. They manage to snag a back row, three seats on one side and one on the other, and Jason’s facing him so he has something safe to focus on. He’s glad. Somewhere ahead of them, a child starts to cry, wails mercilessly loud, and the mother’s hushing can barely be heard over it.

Jason makes a face, playfully exaggerated, and Nico relaxes, leaning into Will’s side. This is different, this is okay.

He’s even able to watch the city pass by outside, over Jason’s shoulder. It’s not really peaceful, as he’s unable to let himself be completely at ease, but he tries. Jason’s playing on his phone, and Hazel’s leaning on him leaning on Will, who seems unbothered by the extra weight and has started toying with Nico’s fingers.

He focuses on keeping his breathing calm, made easier when Will starts to massage his hand, thumbs pushing circles into the heel of his palm, and slowly inching up, over his sleeve, to massage his wrist. It’s so pleasant, and he can feel tension flowing away as WIll’s fingers keep moving. 

They pass four stops like this before Jason looks up and stands, holding onto the overhead bar. “This is us,” he says, reaching over to pull the cord.

For some reason, Nico’s mind is running along calm thoughts he can’t really control, and right now he’s noting how ridiculous it is that every boy he knows is taller, broader than he is. Jason’s a little over six feet, with shoulders even wider than Will’s, built like a linebacker. Even his hands are strong. Nico glances to the side, taking in Will’s profile; the slightly crooked nose that had apparently been broken in middle school and never healed perfectly thanks to Will’s eternal care of others over himself, the long, pale lashes, freckles like constellations that dip down from his ears and splash freely over his cheeks and nose. Nico can believe the metaphor of freckles being angel kisses when it comes to Will, can believe it without question.

It’s nice that there’s imperfections visible in the perfect boys that surround him, it makes it all a little less jarring. Jason’s got a scar on his top lip, a little white line that makes him laugh when it’s brought up, since he got it by eating a stapler as a kid and the discovery of the staple was so sudden and painful that all he does is giggle about it. He says his sister almost killed him for scaring her so bad with his wailing.

Percy’s not here, but he remembers the eternal smirk-y scowl Percy always wears. He doesn’t seem to know how to smile properly, it’s always a crooked, mischievous thing, promising trouble.

He hasn’t thought about Percy unprompted in years.

Will leads him down the bus steps and onto the sidewalk, under the glaringly bright sun, but he still can’t clear his mind.

Percy, with his stupidly pretty eyes, bright green set in a deeply tanned skintone, natural if his mom is anything to go by. His thick dark hair, never sitting right thanks to his near-constant toying with it. His penchant for getting into fights, playful or otherwise, that made him known across the whole school as the resident ‘bad boy,’ sans only the leather jacket.

The way Nico had freaked out and blamed him irreverably for Bianca’s death, even though he knows Percy couldn’t get in cars again for two months, and had walked to school every day. Knows he carried the guilt around like a ball and chain for months after that. He hadn’t come to the funeral, no, but that wasn’t what made Nico so bitter.

He hadn’t realized it until now, really.

Percy had actively avoided him, and  _ that _ is what had hurt the most.

That’s why he’s still bitter about it.

He doesn’t realize he’d stopped walking until Will’s hand pulls at his when they get far enough apart.

Will glances back, confused, and gets closer when he sees Nico’s expression. He’s not sure what it is, but he feels like crying, so maybe that shows.

To his credit, Will doesn’t ask, just cups Nico’s cheeks between his hands and presses a kiss to his forehead. “Want a piggyback ride?”

He can’t help but laugh, and it comes out as half a sob. He’s nodding before even really thinking about it, but once he’s situated it’s much better, as he can tuck his head into the crook between Will’s neck and shoulder and close his eyes, letting the smell and feel of home wash over his senses/

If Will notices the few tears that fall, he doesn’t comment on it, carrying him easily and quietly behind Jason and Hazel. Nico can hear the two ahead talking, but Will doesn’t join them, and Nico wonders what he’s thinking about. He doesn’t ask, because talking is pretty much on the bottom of the list of things he has the willpower to do right now, right above walking. 

***

Will takes him right to his room, and curls around him, spooning him comfortably under the blankets. He still doesn’t ask, and Nico’s grateful. He doesn’t know what he’d say, because he doesn’t know what he’s crying about.

The tears are still falling, silent and slow, but Nico can’t figure out if it’s relief, grief, or pain. He aches, still, from head to toe. He’s so glad he’s back, that Will’s here, the relief is overwhelming. Everyone’s fine, everyone’s okay, he’s fine, he’s okay. Thoughts of Percy and the fucked up mess that is his life and that damn crush still hover on the edges of his mind.

Will’s palms are warm, dragging slowly up and down his side,over the layers of his hoodie and one of the band shirts he always wear beneath his jackets. It’s soothing, but not enough, so Nico shifts until Will’s fingers catch the hem on their way back up.

Will pauses, but he doesn’t say anything. His hand just stays, for a moment, and gently shifts until one of his fingers slides under the hem to rest on the bare skin of Nico’s hip, where it rests, still. Nico closes his eyes, letting his body relax as much as he can make it at the moment. It’s enough of a signal, because WIll slowly drags his hand higher, more than slow, almost at a stop.

It’s so,  _ so _ nice, the direct contact means all that heat floods into him, almost too warm but somehow still so nice. There’s callouses on Will’s fingers, on his palm, that Nico knows is from guitar. It doesn’t matter, the texture of it feels lovely and Will’s so damn gentle he feels like a treasure.

Lips press gently to the back of his neck, and he lets out a breath, feeling himself melt.

“You’re so strong,” Will murmurs, his breath fanning over Nico’s neck and shoulder. “Stronger than anyone else I’ve ever met. Beautiful, too.”

Nico can feel the blush rise in his cheeks, and Will grins, mouth pressed close so Nico can feel it.

He can also feel it when Will kisses along the collar of his jacket, when his arms shift and he moves, gently rolling Nico onto his back and propping himself up on one arm, hovering above, trailing his kisses with him along the edge of Nico’s jaw.

It’s so sweet, so fond, that Nico’s chest aches with it. Aches with the bruises, aches with the swell of his heart, the love he feels for this boy, this boy with his sunshine hair and clear-sky eyes, a golden tan and a golden soul. It’s so cliché, but Nico will swear his mouth is salvation and redemption all in one, the way they feel when they trace down his neck.

Will laces their fingers together lazily, still dragging kisses down the column of Nico’s throat. There’s no rush to this, no request for more, and that’s what makes it so perfect, what allows him to tilt his head back and bare more of his neck. He feels another smile bloom across Will’s lips, pressed just below his ear, and it makes him shiver, makes him hold onto WIll’s hand just a little tighter.

Eventually, Will’s kisses bring him back up and over Nico’s cheeks, clearing the traces of Nico’s tears away, and finally setting over his mouth. He parts his lips immediately, wanting to feel that smile again, and he does. He can taste the salt from his own tears, but it fades quickly, replaced with nothing but Will, and he pulls WIll closer by the collar with his free hand and sets about drowning in him completely.

It’s easy, after all, as things like this with Will leave him lost in acataphasia in the best way, and there’s no one else he’d rather be with than this boy in this bed and in this moment.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look at me, updating so quickly! Damn!  
> Seriously, though, what happened here is a tragedy. It was a blatant hate crime, directed to latinx lgbtq+, and it's sick. I'm disgusted that something like this could even have the opportunity to happen, and between this and the loss of Christina Grimmie Friday, it feels like Orlando's being stripped of safety in the places we go to forget the real world for a bit. Please honor those that we lost in whatever way you're able, even if all that is is a moment of silence. And please, please don't use this as fuel for Islamophobia, because that is _**not**_ what we need right now, in any shape or form.  
>  On a lighter note, I hope this chapter gives a bit of relief from the last few, as they were pretty messy, aha. I felt like writing with all the things that went down this weekend, hence the quick update. As always, I love hearing your guys' thoughts and ideas and predictions, so throw those at me in the comments. I wish I didn't have to post this with such a somber note, but I can't ignore this when it's so important.


	11. Nepenthe

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Winding down, answering questions.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Nepenthe  
> (n) - any drug or potion bringing welcome forgetfulness  
> \--  
> ...
> 
>  
> 
> ...so guys...next chapter is the last chapter...
> 
> (this one is a lil short because it's so close to the end)

Will is a balm, a caress of comfort and a blanket of serenity.

Unfortunately, Nico cannot lose himself in this, in him, forever.

He gets up eventually, and leaving the bed and Will’s arms is terrible, but he drags himself into the shower anyways and scrubs away all the dirt from his past few horrible days. 

The water is as hot as he can handle, and he’s ruthless in his scrubbing, turning his skin pink where it isn’t mottled bluepurplegreen. Washing over the bruises hurts, a lot, but it’s grounding. Keeps him from losing himself in tears and frustration, which is what a part of him wants to do. 

That’s not an option at the moment, unfortunately.

It rarely is, if he’s honest. Generally speaking, total mental breakdowns are inconvenient at best, so he kinda has to figure out a way to bandaid himself together as best as he can and move on.

He’s got shit to do today, anyway. The police want to talk to him, he’s got to probably make some kind of statement, Hades is almost surely gonna have him do the press as well, simply so he doesn’t have to deal with the reporters on his front lawn.

Whatever.

He’ll find a way to deal with it.

He’s got to, he’s not going to breakdown again.

***

When he gets out of the shower, Will is still there, kissing his temple as he slips past to brush his teeth. It makes Nico smile a little, and he and Will work around each other neatly as they get ready for the day. Will already has a bag of stuff under Nico’s bed, since he stays over so often. It’s nice, the domesticity, when he allows himself to enjoy it and not overthink it.

He starts the day in a decent mood because of it, eats the breakfast treat of toaster strudels Jason bought (“Because  _ sale, _ Nico! We’re adults! Dessert for breakfast!”) and the strawberries Nico likes, and there’s even mostly drinkable coffee. It’s not the Italian cappuccino his spoilt palette is used to, but it’s edible enough and it’s caffeine, so he drinks it without complaint.

After that, it’s getting his shit together and heading out to his childhood home after speaking with the police, Will and Jason by his side and Hazel there when they arrive. There're a few reporters on the lawn, chatting with each other, cameras at the ready, but on sight of him, they’re scrambling to get ready to film.

The four of them trade looks, and, as one, break into an all out sprint for the house, making it inside before any questions are close enough to warrant acknowledgment.

Hades waits for them there, arms crossed as he glares out the window between the gap in the long purple velvet curtains. Nico wants to laugh at the cliché of such Gothic™ décor in an old Victorian mansion belonging to the owner of a chain of funeral homes, but he manages to keep it to only a smirk. He can see both Jason and Will control their expressions after a moment as well, and he lets himself roll his eyes before focusing on the matter at hand.

“Is there anyone I specifically have to talk to, or is this just a statement so they’ll leave you alone?” he asks, standing a few feet to the side of his father’s tall, imposing figure.

Hades grunts. “I want them off my lawn.”

His lips twitch again, because his dad is one of those bitter old men about kids playing on the property and ruining Persephone’s gardens. “Duly noted.”

“Go, deal with it quickly.” Hades waves him back toward the door. “I’m not home.”

“Naturally.” Nico took in a breath, steeling himself and finally pulling open the door, not bothering with a smile because, hello, kidnap victim? He can totally frown without getting shit, so he does.

“Mr. di Angelo,” called a tall Asian woman, strutting up to the front door. Her hair fell over his shoulders in black ringlets, and her warm brown eyes were outlined, for some reason, in bright pink liner. “Drew Tanaka, _Olympus_ _Daily News_. We’re doing a piece on the kids that escaped from Gaea’s hold, to help the public learn what to look out for until she’s caught. What can you tell us?”

Nico blinked, leaning against the doorjamb. “Um, she’s really into trees?”

Drew stared at him. “Yes, we got that part. She’s an environmentalist.”

“Right.” He doesn’t bother to pretend he cares, sliding his hands into the pockets of his  _ Nightmare Before Christmas _ hoodie. “Well, she wants all the wealthy families to stop polluting and save the trees, donate to causes, etcetera. Also, she says I’m trash, and my whole family is a waste of space, so there’s that, but when she dies we’re probably gonna be selling the coffin she’s buried in so I’m not really all that affected.”

Drew looks like she doesn’t quite know how to reply to that for a moment, but she recovers quickly. “Okay. Did you get to meet her face to face?”

He rolled his eyes. “Unfortunately. She’s surprisingly into makeup, I wonder if she knows half that shit’s tested on animals?”

Drew cleared her throat. “Mr. di Angelo. What should the public be on the lookout for if they’d like to avoid her? Do you know?”

He shrugged his free shoulder. “Nope. Recycle, maybe? Plant a tree? Reduce your carbon footprint? Go organic?”

Drew frowned slightly. “What can you tell us about your experience?”

“It sucked,” he said bluntly. “I mean, sure, first time around I went in to get my sister, and I end up with a concussion. Okay, fine, whatever, that branch of her operation got shut down, worth it. But then she  _ hits the car I’m in _ and risks killing my friends, kidnaps me  _ again _ , and locks me in a warehouse.” He’s not nearly done speaking, frowning, not realizing how annoyed he was until he started. 

Drew doesn’t interrupt.

“Who the fuck  _ does _ that? And it’s straight out of some cheap thriller, too, with me sitting tied to a chair with a single lightbulb over my head. After I piss her off, she has me chloroformed —  _ chloroformed, _ holy shit — and brought to  _ another _ warehouse, where she apparently put a live feed on her website with threats tied to it? But she didn’t realize I’d figure out where I was, and mouth it out clear enough for my lips to be read. Like I’m not gonna try to save myself? Please.” He rolled his eyes, crossing his arms. “So then she has these twins — Otis and some other bullshit name I can’t be bothered to pronounce — she has them yank me out of the warehouse and throw me in the trunk of a car. Like, literally.” He waved a hand for emphasis, something he hadn’t caught himself doing in years (he used to always talk with his hands, with Bianca, but never after). 

Drew’s writing notes frantically while he talks, but he doesn’t pause. 

“Obviously, there’s a fucking  _ car chase _ while I’m locked in there, too, and at that point I’m dizzy as hell and probably already had my second concussion, so I keep slamming into all the sides, which is why I’m an attractive walking bruise.” He gestured to the discoloration he hadn’t bothered to try and cover on his jaw, on his cheeks. “So, really? All I have to say about her is she’s going about this whole “Save The Earth” thing really,  _ really _ wrong. You can’t go around kidnapping people to make a point and expect anyone to take you  _ seriously. _ Sorry, but you’ve been marked down as missing your marbles, and nothing you say from here on out has any validity unless you’re pleading guilty to being a royal  _ bitch. _ ”

Drew grinned at him when he finished, unbothered by how he glared at the floor. “Thank you so much, that was perfect. Anything else you’d like to add?”

“Yeah.” He looked up, looking her dead in the eye. “Get off my lawn.” 

He stepped back, and shut the door in her face.

***

“That went well,” Jason commented dryly.

“Shut up, Grace.” He snapped, pushing his hands into his hair, closing his eyes and letting out a frustrated breath. 

He hadn’t anticipated talking about it bringing in a whole new wave of anger, but all he wants to go is break something. The heat is back, running in his veins until all he feels is the anger, and it grows colder as he lets it take over. It’s so, so much better than the helpless distress of before, and he welcomes the new feeling. 

Someone touches his arm, but he knocks the hand away, opening his eyes and heading up the black marble steps, the thunk of his boots satisfying even muffled by the purple runner carpet. He hears someone say something behind him, maybe his name, but he ignores it, pushing open the door to his room when he gets there and just standing in the doorway, taking it in.

It’s just as bare as it was in December, a bed and a wardrobe and a closed, empty closet. Plain desk, plain chair, bare floor. It’s one of the rooms that got redone before Persephone moved in, and to this day, she detests the fact that popcorn ceiling exists in her gorgeous, aesthetic house. It’s one of the many things they’re all supposed to pretend doesn’t exist, probably.

Nico is nothing if not resourceful, though, and he knows this room is not as empty as it looks.

He heads to the air vent first, dragging the chair over and popping off the cover, pulling out a little metal box that contains three hundred dollars in cash. He pockets the money, tossing the box into the trash can that sits, unused until now, by the empty desk. Then it’s to the closet and in the compartment he’d found built into the floor when he was eleven, during a game of hide and seek, when the house had still been a pleasant place to be.

He knows now that he doesn’t ever want a reason to return.

He and his father are growing to be on better terms, but this place is not his home and hasn’t been for many years. He hooks a nail into the indent in the floor and pops up the boards, tossing them aside and reaching down, lifting out the wooden box that contains everything he has left of Bianca.

Inside, he knows, are drawings she’d done with him, polaroids and strips from the photo booths in the nearby mall. Notes, every birthday and holiday card she had even given him, her journals — he has never read them, but it does not seem right to destroy them or let them fall into anyone else’s hands — everything. It shouldn’t stay here, collecting dust while he’s off at college. He’s going to take her with him.

A hand sets lightly on the small of his back, and he jumps slightly before realizing it’s Will, crouched beside him with a gentle expression.

“Hi,” Will says softly. “How’re you doing?”

He shrugs, looking down at the box in his lap and stroking his fingers over the smooth surface. “Didn’t wanna leave her here anymore.”

Will doesn’t ask, gently rubbing circles on his back. “Okay. Is there anything else you want to take?”

He shakes his head, using one arm to cradle the box close and the other to shift the boards back into place. Will helps him up after, and they head back downstairs, where both Jason and Hazel wait, watching as the descend.

Will doesn’t offer anything, keeping his hand on the small of Nico’s back, and Nico doesn’t explain either. He just holds onto the box, anger gone. It had melted away as soon as he set eyes on the box, really, which he’d been expecting.

Now, he’s just tired, and he wants to go back to his room in the apartment he and Jason share and fall asleep with Will wrapped around him, the best kind of safety blanket in the world.

***

There’s something else he wants to deal with.

It’s not going to be fun, and he knows it, but he also knows it’s necessary if he ever wants to be able to let go of all the fucking pain that pulls at his shoulders.

He explains to Jason quietly after Will leaves, and Jason nods, and it’s settled.

The next morning, Percy comes over.

***

It’s awkward, intensely awkward, and Jason slips away to his room and leaves them both in the living room, seated on each of the two couches and facing each other but not quite looking at each other.

It’s Nico that starts the conversation, finally, when he finishes his coffee. “I’m sorry for hating you all these years.”

Percy blinks, and actually blushes. “No,  _ I’m _ sorry. I wasn’t there for you at all, not even when you really needed it. I was a really shitty friend, you had every right to hate me.  _ I _ hated me for a bit. I couldn’t bring myself to even go to her funeral, how shitty is that?” He shook his head, dragging a hand through his hair. “I’m sorry, man. Really, I am.”

And, oh.

It feels like there’s a weight teetering on the edge, ready to fall, and for the first time, he knows how to get rid of it.

So he does.

He takes a deep breath, sits a little straighter, and looks Percy in the eye. “I forgive you.”

He can see the change in Percy, too. Both of them have been holding onto this grief for so long, and he’ll bet money Percy hadn’t realized he was doing it until it was gone.

He misses her, still, sharp and intense like it was the day he lost her, but there’s less…he’s not guilty anymore.

It wasn’t his fault.

It wasn’t Percy’s, either.  

Maybe there is someone at fault, maybe it was the driver in Percy’s car, maybe it was Zoë for not paying attention, maybe it was karma for being a bitch.

The point is, it can’t be helped now, and he’s spent so many years guilty and upset about it that he’s never really let himself remember her for the joy she brought. He’s never let himself just simply be  _ thankful _ she was alive, that she was  _ his _ sister, and he got as much with her as he did.

The thought makes tears well up in his eyes, but he’s smiling, helpless. Percy gives him a small, shy grin, and for some reason, his heart just swells and the tears flood down.

Percy’s saved from him crying by the timely arrival of Jason, holding a cup like an excuse for leaving his room, but it’s abandoned in favor of gathering Nico into a hug. He laughs a little wetly into Jason’s shoulder, relieved and aching at the same time. It’s a bittersweet agony, but it’s healing, he thinks, and that’s okay.

He won’t need any sort of nepenthe, now, not for her. Remembering her isn’t such a painful thing, it’s nostalgia mixed with grief rather than crushing guilt. He feels like he just pulled a tack out of his heel; it hurts now that it’s bleeding again, but it can finally heal, and he won’t have to feel the burn with every step.

It’s progress, and for now, it’s enough. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know! I didn't know it was gonna end so soon! I'm sorry!  
> BUT. There's a poll [here](http://www.poll-maker.com/poll723341x23804b31-29) (in gross colors bc the formatting decided to fuck up, and I'm too lazy to go fix it oops) that allows you guys to vote on what the next au is! I put all the options I could think of, and one for an open-ended thing where you guys just send me sentence prompts or word prompts or lyrics or whatever kinda prompt, and I fill them and make it into a series. I'm totally cool with any of them, tbh, so it's up to you guys!  
> \--  
> Thank you for the kind wishes and comments about Orlando. It's something we must somehow move on from, hard as that may be. I wish you all strength and courage.


	12. Callipygous

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> That's a wrap, folks.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Callypigous  
> (adj) - having a great ass  
> \--  
> Wow, guys. What a fun ride this has been!  
> Thank you so much for following this journey with me, and for sticking with me through it all. It was truly a joy to read all your reactions and hear your opinions, and I'm so glad we got to enjoy this together.  
> \--  
> WARNING: things get a little steamy towards the end? Not explicitly, but leading there and then implied. Just so you're aware :)

Recovery is not an easy word.

There are promises of safety, sanity, serenity in it. The implication that one day, everything will be okay, and he will be happy with his life, utterly and completely.

When talking about recovery, it's not often a relapse is addressed, like it’s not part of the process. It’s looked down like, like backtracking, or a mistake, or a failure.

“It’s not,” Will says softly, gently cleaning the red from his wrists. “It’s okay. You’re still doing really well, you’re still a good person.”

“It’s life, Nico,” Jason says lightly, stroking his hair from where he hasn’t left his bed in thirty-six hours, save for the bathroom. “Some days are good, and some are bad. It’s okay to have bad days, and we’re here for you when they are.”

“It’s really no big deal,” Will assures, cuddling him close after they clean up, after he threw up the lunch he just  _ couldn’t _ keep down, stomach turning. “It’s okay, Sunshine. We’re not mad, nobody is disappointed. These things happen, it’s part of recovery. You’re doing so well, you’re so strong.”

***

The months drag by, and he finishes his first year of college with decent grades and amazing friends by his side.

It’s the kind of achievement he’d never anticipated really making. 

Sure, he figured he’d coast through college like he did high school, friendless and emotionless, day by day as the hands spin slow around the clock. He figured he’d get a diploma for something he didn’t care about, go to another college like a good little rich boy and get a second degree to get a job and work until he dies.

He hadn’t anticipated Will, who would draw him out of his shell and into the sun.

He hadn’t anticipated Will, who taught him how to live again.

He hadn’t anticipated Will, who took Nico’s heart straight from his chest and cradled it like it was the most precious treasure the world has ever seen. 

He got Jason, too, unwavering in support and steadiness, always there when the world is too loud and too much and he just needs to curl up and push it away for a bit.

He has Hazel, a beacon of pure good, a golden ray that never dims or fails, always there to knock away the shadows and pull him into a hug as sweet and comforting as she is.

He hadn’t planned on becoming part of the whole group, but it’s like they’re made of fucking jello because he’s absorbed as seamlessly as it would have been if he was part of it all along. 

Reyna is his next closest friend, a headstrong and plain strong girl who apparently once dated Jason and now won’t take any of his shit, ever, and won’t take anyone else’s, either. She and Thalia are similar in badassery, but Reyna has a way of also becoming your mom without there being anything you can do to stop it, so there’s that.

He gets texts every now and then asking if he ate that day, because if he did he should join her for a volleyball match so they can kick Jason and Piper’s ass and whoop Percy thoroughly, though they’d inevitably tie with Annabeth.

It’s nice, having friends.

He doesn’t ever get to the point where he’s wallowing alone in his room, because Will’s sending him cat memes or Leo’s spamming him with puns or Percy’s trying to convince him and Jason through a group text that dressing up the campus statue as a mermaid is the best prank in the entire world and they need to do it right now immediately,  _ I swear we won’t get caught, I’m good at this! _

He rolls his eyes, answering with one of the fourteen different cat reaction pictures Will has managed to save to his photos since the last time he cleared them out (“You’re gonna eat up my memory, Solace.” [ _ exasperated sigh _ ] “Nico, you literally have Spotify, Snapchat, and Tumblr installed. This is a 32gig. I think I can set a different Grumpy Cat picture to every one of your contacts and not make a blip in the memory you have left.”).

Jason responds with a Pepe meme, and together they bury Percy in spam until he gives up and snaps them both a picture of him flipping them off.

Altogether, today is one of the Good days.

***

“I think I love you,” Nico breathes, not bothering to lift his head from where it rests on Will’s shoulder.

They’re outside, curled under the shade of a big oak tree and soaking up the soft heat of the summer day, the breeze stirring through and whisking Nico’s curls into Will’s mouth every now and then, making him laugh and sputter. Will had initially been playing guitar, but Nico had climbed into his lap to make him stop playing a purposely bad cover of  _ Hotel California _ for the third time in a row, so now they’re just cuddling.

“Yeah?” Will asks, after a moment, shifting his arms from where thy rest around Nico’s waist to hold him a little tighter.

“Yeah,” he says, feeling the honesty all the way to his core. 

There’s a small pause, and then Will’s lips press to his forehead, gentle and warm. “I love you, too. More than you’ll ever be able to comprehend, probably.”

He can feel the blush start to cover his entire face, and he rolls his eyes. “You’re so embarrassing, do you always have to top me?”

Will laughed, squeezing him gently. “You like it, though!”

Nico whacks his shoulder for the innuendo, sitting up and kissing him properly, just to get him to shut up.

By the way Will kisses back, he knows Nico’s not even remotely annoyed. This is how they work, and nothing could be more perfect.

***

When everyone is done with finals, they have a party.

It’s such a stereotypical college party that Nico outright laughs when they arrive. 

There're red solo cups in everyone’s hands, the bass pumps through the walls, there’s a room upstairs hotboxed to the point where smoke pours out from the crack under the door like some kind of horror movie shtick.

It’s fucking fantastic, honestly.

He dances with Jason, Piper, Reyna, Leo…everyone, really. The music has a fast beat, it’s almost too easy to lift his arms and let himself move. He’s smiling, and so is everyone else and they’re all some degree of tipsy. 

Piper’s already shirtless, and Jason’s never far from her and her neon pink bra. Annabeth is crushing absolutely everyone she faces at darts, and she’s probably still almost completely sober. Percy, at her side, is drunk and giggling into her shoulder every time she hits a bullseye, which is basically every time she throws.

He doesn’t see Will yet, but he’d texted and said he’d be late, so Nico’s not really worried. He’s watching an entertaining round of strip poker go on in the corner, where Leo is already down to his socks and boxers and swearing in Spanish whenever he’s dealt a card.

The drink he has in his cup tastes like fruit and sugar, and he sips at it as Leo kicks off his socks and whines to Calypso, who is the smirking dealer.

Reyna’s arm curls over his shoulder, and he grins up at her, fighting a laugh for no reason at all other than the fact he’s just  _ happy _ in the moment.

She smiles, warm, and gestures to the card game. “Should we tell Leo he’s got zero chance of winning, or let him suffer?”

He shrugged, leaning into the warmth of her side. “Depends. Will he streak if he loses?”

She wrinkled her nose. “Good point. I’ll have to have someone catch him before he gets arrested for public indecency again.”

He snorts, unable to help it. “ _ Again _ ?”

Reyna pats his head as she pulls back. “Right, this is your first time partying with us. Well, Piper strips off her shirt, but Leo just strips when he’s drunk. It’s why we try not to let him get drunk before anyone else.”

Leo curses loudly, colorfully, and for a long thirty seconds before standing and pulling at his boxers.

Reyna throws up her hands and starts calling for Jason, so Nico leaves them to it so he doesn’t need to witness Leo’s naked butt and have to try and unsee it when they meet again sober.

The crowd is thick, but he’s small enough to weave through pretty easily, and he makes his way outside to feel the fresh air on his hot skin.

He gets onto the front porch just as Will’s coming up the steps, and he gets the sudden urge to jump into his arms.

_ Fuck it, _ he thinks. The night is just the right temperature, the sky’s clear, he’s happy, and Will’s gorgeous in a  _ Trust me, I’m a Doctor _ shirt and those jeans that fit him  _ just right, _ so he takes a step forward, absently sets his cup on the rail, and jumps.

Will’s eyes widen a little, but he still manages to catch Nico, so Nico wraps his arms around his neck and his legs around his waist and kisses him full on the mouth.

He tastes like honey and peach green tea, so he’s been studying before he came over, the nerd. It’s okay, though, because he kisses back, hands under Nico’s thighs, and it’s nothing short of fantastic.

***

Will had checked if he was sober a minute into the kiss and since his fruity whatever had been his only cup of the night and he’d only gotten halfway through, there’s no issue with them kissing heatedly as they dance. 

Nico stopped caring what people thought about their relationship some weeks ago, so he doesn’t try to censor himself as he presses close, Will’s hands spread over his lower back and radiating heat through the thin layers of his band shirt and the flannel he’d stolen from Will and layered over it. 

The bassline thumbs in time with his heartbeat and Will’s kisses trail over his jaw and down onto his neck. It’s far too nice to stop, so he closes his eyes and lets his head fall back, sliding one hand into those pretty blond waves and  _ basking _ in the attention that’s wholly centered on him and him alone.

Nothing else matters, and the sun could fall from the heavens and he’d still not want to part from this feeling.

***

They get upstairs, but Nico’s a little hazy on how because he knows he hasn’t gone more than a minute without Will’s lips on some part of him. Clarity is overrated, though, as the door clicks shut and Will locks it, lifting him up again to set him on the thankfully bare dresser beside it.

It’s not the first time they’ve messed around, but it is the fastest they’ve built to it, and this feels much hotter in both temperature and mood. Will’s mouth is one of Nico’s favorite things in the world, especially when it’s closed over that spot just beneath his ear and sucking, and Nico’s toes almost curl from the wonderful sparks that fly under his skin.

He’s glad Will checks with him, always, because he does now and Nico can say with utter conviction that there’s too many clothes and know it’s not alcohol or drugs or any sort of influence over him, and if he’s said he wanted to stop and go play ping pong with a drunk Percy, Will would do it, would let him go and smile the entire time, and  _ mean _ his happiness.

It’s dizzying, the safety, the security, because nothing has felt this much like true happiness in his entire life and it’s fucking incredible.

It gets better when Will lets him pull off that stupid shirt and run his hands over miles of freckled, tanned skin. It’s better again when Will peels off Nico’s layers and Nico doesn’t feel the need to cover up like he would with anyone else, and when Will’s mouth is back on him, all over the newly exposed skin.

Nico quickly loses track of things like the passage of time and his own name, as they’re irrelevant when Will’s so close and everywhere at once. 

Who cares about what day it is when Will’s hands are in his back pockets, who cares what month when those back pockets brush his thighs, his shins, and then the floor?

Rational thought goes out the window completely shortly after that, and it’s just a whirlwind of bliss and warmth.

***

They’re pretty much all drunk when the party ends, and they end up piled in the living room and watching  _ Hercules _ and sharing five bags of popcorn among the nine of them (Percy, Annabeth, Reyna, Leo, Calypso, Will, Jason, Piper, and Nico himself). Leo’s asleep twenty minutes in, and really only he and Will make it to the end, though Annabeth seems to still be stroking Percy’s hair as the end credits roll.

He falls asleep comfortably, Will’s arms around his waist and happy memories filling his head, including a spectacular game of Cards Against Humanity where Will won by a landslide and Reyna came in last by seven entire cards less than anyone else (she had a very specific sense of humor that only her sister and Thalia shared, and Thalia never showed up to parties).

As he drifts off, he hears his dork of a boyfriend mumbling words under his breath, his name mixed in.

“...so callipygous. Such pretty eyes. Nico...so cute…”

“Dork,” Nico sighs, and then he’s asleep, and the end credits scroll on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ALRIGHT.  
> I'm not sure when I'll get started on the new au, or when I'll be posting it, but feel free to hmu on [tumblr](http://distantdreamingg.tumblr.com/ask) and send in prompts, which I will fill and post here in a series!  
> (Seriously, guys, I LOVE filling prompts for you, please send them in and love me.)  
> Additionally, [this](http://goo.gl/1zzbN9) is the poll for the new au, the six most popular choices from the other poll with a new and improved one vote a person system, 'cause I know some of you spammed a little (I can see when each vote was added!). This is fine, and all, but I really wanna get a good view on what you guys really want as a majority. I'm excited to see what you pick, I'd be happy to explore any of these!


End file.
